


The Art of Breaking

by akelios



Series: Arts Verse [2]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe, Bathing/Washing, Captivity, Depression, Drowning, Eating Disorders, Illnesses, M/M, Oral Sex, Psychological Torture, Shaving, Stockholm Syndrome, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Violence, Vomiting, Watersports
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-09
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:11:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akelios/pseuds/akelios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The League leaves Gotham to its death throes. Bane brings John Blake with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Helpfully beta'd and egged on by forestgreen. All remaining mistakes are mine.

The camera lights go out all at once, the men shutting them down in unison without a word. John can hear nothing but the sound of his own breathing, desperate and sobbing, and the crackling hiss of Bane's breath in his ear. The hand on his thigh squeezes one last time, eliciting a groan of pain that John can't hold back.

“Sir.” John looks past Bane's shoulder to the man standing there. The man stares back, dark eyes unflinching in a lean, scarred face. He's holding a gun. John flinches, fear and resignation sending a chill up his spine.

“Leave us.” Bane leans back, rises until he is standing over John, big enough to block out the sun. John is left staring at Bane's massive, limp sex as he sets himself to rights. The man with the gun steps around Bane, holds the pistol out to him like an offering. Bane barely even looks at the weapon, dismissal in every line of his body.

The room clears quickly, in near silence. There are no comments, no jeers or taunts. Nothing but the orderly, hurried movements of people with other duties to be seen to. The bright lights are turned down low. The faint chill brought by the shadows settles against John's skin as the sweat and piss covering him begins to dry. Once they're alone, Bane runs the back of his fingers across John's cheek. The gesture is out of place; it belongs between lovers, between family. John's heart skips a beat and he waits for the touch to turn hard, for that hand to grasp his neck and twist.

Instead John finds himself unchained, the heavy links pulled from around his waist to be looped over one of Bane's shoulders. Bane takes hold of John's hands, crushing the bracelets of the cuffs into his wrists until John feels the skin split and begin to bleed. He kicks, the motion uncoordinated and slow. His legs feel like hollow pipes that are only poorly attached to the rest of his body. Bane doesn't bother to even pretend to doge, simply taking the faint impact against his legs before twisting John's arms higher.

Bane half drags, half carries him through a maze of hallways until John is completely lost. He struggles to get his feet under him but the feeling is coming back and he's grateful for that even as the pain makes it impossible for him to stand. They meet no one. Even the faint sounds of voices have grown distant and silent by the time Bane stops at an open doorway with only a sheet of plastic covering it.

It's a locker room style shower, tile and low walls and gleaming steel everywhere John looks. Bane drags him over to the nearest stall and shoves him forward. John turns so that his shoulder takes the impact rather than his head, the pain of the blow a new, dull note added to the symphony already within his body.

Hands pull at his hair, yank him up and back until he's staring at the ceiling. Bane loops the chain around John's throat, drawing it tight enough to nearly lift John off his feet as he reaches up to tie the other end off to the shower head. Panic chokes John more than the metal at his throat, the rubber soles of his shoes squealing across the tile as he squirms and twists.

“Stop that.” Bane's fingers dig into John's hips, forcing him to stillness. John takes deep, whooping breaths, convinced that each one of them will be his last. But the air keeps coming, cold and musty but filling his lungs just the same. “If all I wanted was your death, you would be dead already. Keep calm. Do not move and you will not hurt yourself.”

Bane releases him and John vibrates with the need to move, the certainty that Bane had been holding him up blooming in the back of his mind. The chain rattles but does not tighten and John finds that he can feel the floor solidly beneath his feet. If he doesn't move, he should be fine. John breathes and his heart starts to slow, dizziness and panic fading.

“Very good.” Bane's broad fingers brush the back of John's head and loosen the straps of the gag. The leather flops gently against his neck as Bane pries his mouth open a little more and pulls the ring from between John's teeth. John groans softly in relief and works his jaw. It feels strange, almost dislocated, but he can move it even as he can taste blood from where the corners of his mouth have torn.

Bane tears the uniform from John, the fabric ripping at the seams with weighty groans. John winces at each sound. Even soiled and ruined as it is, this is just one more insult to the uniform, to what it stands for. The scraps are tossed over the wall in front of John, landing with wet thwaps until there is nothing left but his shoes. When Bane takes one of John's calves in hand and lifts, John has to fight to keep from jerking to one side and hanging himself. The tile is uncomfortably cold beneath the naked soles of his feet, the cold air making him shiver unstoppably.

The water, when it comes, is freezing. Bane's hands are welcome points of warmth where they touch him, scrubbing soap through his hair, over sticky, stained skin until John feels raw. Bane leaves him there, steps into the next stall and John can see the steam from the shower even if he can't feel the heat.

“Bastard.” John growls it out through chattering teeth. The water, still spilling over him, is painfully cold.

“Almost certainly.” The water cuts off and Bane returns to him, shutting down John's water and unwrapping the chain from around his throat. 

He's shivering too hard to do anything but imagine fighting back as Bane pushes him down to his knees, the edges of the tile digging into his skin in sharp lines of pain. Bane is finally, horrifically hard, just as large as John had feared he would be and he knows what's going to happen. There's no other way this can end, no other reason for him to still be breathing.

John lets Bane bend him forward until his head rests on the tile, a supplicant before an angry and uncaring god. Fingers breach him and John bites through his bottom lip, blood spilling down over his chin. Bane's found something to use as lube, or John would be screaming, but he's not moving slowly. There's no chance to adjust, just the rough thrust and spread of massive fingers inside of him; first two then three, tearing him open.

At least it's not in front of the cameras, he thinks. At least no one will know, which is small comfort when Bane is grabbing his hips and forcing them up higher, his legs wider until John's muscles are threatening to cramp again. The pain, when Bane drives into him, is endless. John screams until he runs out of breath, until all he can do is whimper with each thrust. 

He tries to hold his breath, tries to ride each crushing thrust into oblivion, but he can't even manage that. Bane batters John until he feels like he's being destroyed from the inside out, until there's nothing left but a hollow, echoing space. Bane's animal growl of pleasure vibrates through John a second before the monster comes, flooding his abused body.

John waits on his knees, waits for the dizziness of blood loss or the quicker pain of Bane crushing his skull. Nothing comes but the steady, bruised pain that stretches through his body. He feels liquid drooling out of his ass. Bane's too large fingers slide in with ease now and he drags more and more of his come out to smear over John's thighs, his back.

He wants to curse, wants to tell Bane to just kill him already, to get it over with. He can't find the strength to do either.

Bane lifts him, hands under his arms pulling him to his feet. Something inside shifts; the pain John had thought the worst he could ever feel flares and erupts into something beyond comprehension, as if his spine is wrapped in barbed wire.

John finally, far too late for it to be any kind of mercy, passes out.

The room he wakes in is small and dark. For a brief minute, the space between when he wakes and when he opens his eyes, John feels relief. The nightmare is over. He will get up, get dressed and smile at Gordon over their breakfast of dry cereal. John will never, ever tell anyone about the horrors he has dreamed.

John shifts on the bed and the pain comes back. Dulled from the crippling agony of before, it is still enough to make his throat clamp tight. He opens his eyes to look at his prison. The bed is a thin mattress on the floor, the only other thing in the room is a wooden chair that looks like it will disintegrate if he breathes on it too hard. John is alone, the handcuffs gone. It's a small bit of consolation.

It takes him hours to work himself up to getting out of the bed. As long as he moves slowly, the pain is bearable. John tests the door, finds it locked from the outside as he expected. The chair is sturdier than it looks, sound enough to risk dragging it over to the small window he can see high up in the wall and climbing onto the seat.

The effort is wasted. The window is barred, covered on the outside with storm shutters that block out everything but the tiniest sliver of light at the very bottom.

John stares at the light as long as he can, until the pain in his back forces him down. He crawls back to the mattress and stretches out until he can breathe again.

Bane comes later, water and food in hand. John eats and drinks in silence. He knows he should be worried about poison, maybe, or some sort of drug but part of him laughs at the thought. It's only when Bane moves the bowl to the side, his hands finding John's bare thighs unerringly in the dim light that John feels a spike of fear.

“No.” He tries to scramble backwards, to escape somewhere if only for a second, but Bane's hands are hard and there's nowhere to go. John finds himself pinned down, hands held above his head in one massive fist as Bane pushes his pants down below his hips. 

It's slower this time, but no less brutal. John struggles for breath, his body bent nearly double. Bane's fingers dig into his thighs, nails scratching and drawing blood. When it ends John lays still, unable to move, and listens to Bane cleaning himself up quickly.

“Why don't you just kill me?” Blood and come dripping from his body, every joint aching and muscle burning, John finds that he would welcome death at this moment.

“I am killing you.”

Time is an artificial construct in John's cell, but he marks it as best he can. He can't tell if the light that seeps in beneath the shutters is the sun or one of the millions of spotlights in Gotham, but he marks 'days' by it anyway. Men come in the 'morning', bring him two buckets. One to wash off with, a barely adequate sponging to get the worst of the grime off. The other to relieve himself in. They never speak, never look away. He shies from them at first, tries to find some way to hide the marks from Bane's hands, the bruises that never get the chance to heal. Still, they never make a move towards him, though he can feel them cataloging each visible mark. In spite of himself he begins to grow used to their silent presence around the third 'day'.

Hunger and thirst plague him until Bane comes in the 'afternoon', bringing cold water and something filling if not exactly tasty. He knows that the anticipation he feels for Bane's visits is driven by his fear that if the man doesn't come no one will remember John and he will be left alone to starve to death. The pain doesn't get better, doesn't ever end. John lives with it. What other choice does he have?

John is cold all the time. Not cold enough to hurt, but enough that he notices how warm Bane is. He tells himself he doesn't mind the cold, ignores the bursts of warmth that come when he manages to land a couple of punches before Bane beats him. John doesn't think about how, on the edges of the pain as Bane ruts into him, there's a part of him that wants to hold onto the warmth of Bane's body.

Bane removes the chair on day four, after he catches John testing the bars over the window. 

Time becomes a little harder to track after that. He judges it by the men with the buckets and Bane himself. John suspects them of drugging him, of coming twice in one real day or not at all just to fuck with him. He suspects them of acting suspicious just to make him doubt reality. He suspects he might be losing his fucking mind a day at a time.

He doesn't know what to do about any of it.

It's either day eight or nine when Bane follows the bucket men into his cell. John hurries through his morning routine, the feel of Bane's eyes on him as he pisses and then washes up uncomfortable. He can't forget the hot wash of piss over his back, his face. Or the pleasure that Bane had taken in it.

The men leave and John wedges himself into the corner farthest from Bane and the bed, ready to keep fighting his hopeless fight.

Bane laughs and tosses down a bundle of clothing. “Get dressed.”

“Why?” John means to say 'no', just as he has to every request Bane has made over the past days. He has no idea why something else comes out of his mouth.

“Because if you do not, I will break your right hand. I will crush every bone in it until it is nothing but a mangled lump of useless flesh. And then I will make you dress yourself.” Bane bows his head a bit in John's direction, knocking once to have the door opened.

He dresses quickly, unsure of when Bane will return. The clothes are obviously Bane's, the fabric carries his scent, and too large for John. He feels like he's a kid again, dressed in cast offs and shamed by the fact. But the sweatshirt is soft and warm, even if the sleeves cover his hands unless he pushes them up to his elbows, and the pants hide the smudged bruises on his hips and thighs so that John can pretend they're not there for a little while.

There's no belt, no shoes. John hooks the fingers of one hand through the belt loops in order to cross to the small window. Without the chair it's too high for him to look out of easily and the storm shutters block out the light, but the sounds in the street reach him. Shouts and the steady thrum of powerful engines. The lock thuds open and John jumps, guilty, his fingers slipping from the tiny inner sill where he's stretched up, trying to feel a little warmth from the thin line of sun that has to be there.

"Come here." Bane closes the door and waits, a bundle of cloth dwarfed in his hands. John presses his back to the wall and shakes his head no.

The fight, such as it is, is over quickly. John is pinned on his back, his knuckles torn and bleeding sluggishly almost before he can feel the surge of adrenaline. Bane is sitting on him, holding him down, and John can feel the too familiar weight of his cock every time he takes a breath. Bane sighs, disappointed with him, and John lets himself be cuffed without any further resistance. The metal digs into the wide bands of bruises around his wrists as Bane ratchets them as tight as they will go. John doesn't let the flinch show. Bane knows John is weak, has seen enough to be sure of it, dragged enough screams from John to know his weakness is a deep running fault. There's no reason to just hand Bane more fuel.

Bane rises and draws John up with him, bunching the pants together and guiding John's hands to the tangle of fabric. He strokes his fingers along John's cheek, seemingly unconcerned by the rough drag of stubble there.

"What's happening?" John turns his head away from the touch, trying to look over his shoulder at the window. Bane catches him by the back of the neck and forces him to stillness.

"We're leaving." Bane pulls the hood of the sweat shirt up until it obscures John's vision, leaving him to peer out at legs and boots as Bane guides him out through the halls and into the street. The pavement is cold, the chill of winter clinging in the dark caverns of Gotham's alleys and John can hear gunshots and screaming somewhere to the south. He stumbles, trying to slow Bane down, to get his bearings. To maybe have a chance at rescue. John throws himself to the ground, makes himself dead weight.

“ _Help_!” The activity around him pauses, a ripple of shock going through the men. John kicks out at feet he can see running towards him, the hood flopping into his eyes and giving him only fractured chunks of his surroundings. He shouts again. A boot catches him in the side, driving the air from his lungs.

Bane crouches on top of him, knees to either side of John's head. “If someone did come, what do you think would happen?” He grabs John's jaw and yanks the hood back, letting him see. They are surrounded by Bane's men. Not the conscripts from Blackgate, but the hard cases that had been with Bane from the beginning. Bane pries John's mouth open, fingers grabbing hard at John's tongue. He gags as Bane pulls, nails biting into the slick muscle. “I should rip your tongue from your head.” Bane pulls harder and John screams, the noise garbled. “No? No.”

He gags John with a dirty strip of cloth he pulls from a pocket. Every time John breathes he tastes sweat and Bane. Bane lifts John from the ground, tosses him against something that looks like a tank. He's pulled and pushed until he slides down into the machine, catches a glimpse of Bane's right hand psycho at the wheel and Bane himself clinging to the side of the vehicle as they drive off. They meet no resistance that he can see, and when Bane pulls him from the hatch he can hear the whine of a planes engine drowning out everything else. Bane slings him over one shoulder, each step jarring John's stomach against the ridge of his shoulder. The world passes by as glimpses of grass and asphalt, Bane's boots and long metal boxes out of the corner of his eye.

It's a relief to be sat down on a hard bench, straps wrapped around him, buckling him in until he feels like a fly trapped in a web. Bane starts to move away. John bites at the gag, resisting the urge to try and speak. He wants to ask Bane what's going on again, or to pull the hood back so John can at least see.

"And who is this? Someone new for your prison?" The voice is soft, familiar. It takes John a second to place it, so unexpected is her presence. He shakes his head, trying to move the hood from over his eyes enough to see. It can't be. It can't.

"What are you _doing_?" Delicate hands fling the hood back from his eyes and there she is, Miranda Tate. Her long brown hair is tied back severely from her face. She's lost the dresses and jewelry, clothed now in more utilitarian garb that matches Bane and the other men. Her eyes are on him, flicking quickly over his face and body, but her attention is on Bane who stands beside her.

Anger chokes him and he growls at her, teeth grinding at the gag. He knows now, too late, who was betraying them, who killed the Special Forces men and so many others. John lunges forward against the straps, kicks out at her and catches her in one knee. She snarls and John sees the blow coming, but before it can land something the size and speed of a train slams into his face, drives his head into the rib of the plane in a precise, excruciating snap of pain. He sees stars, can hear himself grunt and whine. John slumps, what has to be blood running down his face.

"Never touch her." Bane's fingers touch the blood, smear it over his cheek and down his throat. His eyes refuse to focus, so John closes them. Bane and Miranda speak, the language slick and flowing around him. He's never heard anything like it before, his head spinning so fast that he couldn't follow it if he had.

"Are you certain, my brother?" The return to English is jarring, her voice now carrying a trace of the other tongue. Small, cool hands cup his chin, lift his head. He forces his eyes open and glares at the traitor.

"Yes." Bane touches her arm, tender.

They land after a few hours, switch to a large cargo plane. John feels like cargo; carried around, trussed up and put someplace out of the way. No one speaks to him, most of the men won't even look at him. He sits beside Bane but might as well be invisible. John sleeps, or passes out, they're the same thing these past few days and when he wakes they're no longer on the plane but jouncing over land at break neck speeds. John's mouth is dry, the gag soaking up every last bit of moisture.

He's sweating in spite of the air conditioning he can feel blasting against his face, the sweat shirt that had been comforting in Gotham now heavy and strangling. John's head is leaning against the window, Bane to one side pinning him against the door. He moves slowly, his hands still cuffed together, to find the lock and the handle. It's all sand, beyond the glass, with quick glimpses of buildings and trees here and there. John holds his breath, fingers curling around the lock and pulling. It clicks open and he freezes. Bane shifts, but doesn't seem to notice the quiet sound.

One breath, two, another town coming up on his side and John yanks on the handle. The door flies open, spilling John onto the sand. He tucks into a ball as best as he can but John feels his shoulder hit wrong, pain star-bursting out and then that side goes numb. John rolls, crashes into a ditch beside the road and scrambles to his feet. The sand slides from beneath his feet, trips him and spills him back into the bottom of the ditch. He digs in with his hands, can feel the pants start to slide down his legs but doesn't stop, kicking and crawling out of them until he reaches solid ground.

John runs for the houses he can see in the distance. He hears brakes scream behind him, angry shouting and doors slamming open. He doesn't look back, doesn't dare think about the thudding pace behind him growing closer. There are people there, between the houses, small figures that grow larger and resolve into men and women as he gets closer. Some of the men have guns, long rifles leaning against the sides of their houses.

He wants to scream for help but all that comes out is a wheezing, muffled groan. John is gasping for each breath, his lungs feeling as though they're slicing themselves to ribbons on each inhale. He reaches the closest house, clipping the corner with his numb shoulder and staggering to a stop. His legs threaten to collapse out from under him and he clings to the rough side of the building in desperation. The man standing near the door looks at him, then back toward the road. John can feel Bane's approach, the earth shaking with each pounding step. He meets the silent man's dark eyes and begs for help in his own rough pantomime. John sees understanding in the man's face. And rejection.

John tries to pull the gag from his mouth, he needs to be able breathe better, but it's tied too tightly. He reaches up, trying to find the knot as the rasp of Bane's breathing reaches his ears. The local shakes his head in a slow, exaggerated movement. John pushes off the building, aiming for the alley between the houses. The man says something, reaches out as John staggers past him and catches the collar of the sweatshirt. He pulls hard, drags John off his feet and pushes him to the sand.

John screams in frustration, sand slipping behind the gag and making him choke. He's twisting on the ground like a landed fish when Bane arrives. A boot pins him to the earth, sand scratching his bare legs, the sun beating down on him ruthlessly as the men around him speak. The language is quick and fluid, but even John can hear the anger in Bane's voice; can feel it in the way the boot heel grinds down into his spine with precise pressure.

“Foolish.” Bane pulls John to his feet, tears the sweat shirt from his shoulders in a single pull. John glances around. The people of the town have disappeared, leaving only Bane's men. John tries to cover himself, hands curling into loose fists to hide the most vulnerable part of his nakedness. “These are our people! We protect them! There is nowhere you can run from me.” Bane runs his thumb along the corner of John's mouth, pulling at the skin. “It is another hundred miles to base. Perhaps you would prefer to walk?” Bane forces his head up, tears the gag from his mouth. There is nothing but sand in front of him. No trees, no buildings. John imagines dying on the dunes, dry and burnt. Vultures and whatever else lives out there tearing him to pieces until there's nothing left.

“Yeah, sure.” Even John can hear the fear in his thin voice, the truth that no, he does not want to die like that.

Bane's fingers curl across his cheek, the gentle gesture making John freeze. “A child's answer. Full of bravado and ignorance.” The blow knocks him to the ground, leaves him spitting blood.

They haul him to his feet, wrap him in a loose robe that the man from the village brings out. It's thin, but John can feel the difference immediately as the sun stops burning the skin from his body quite so quickly. They have to take the handcuffs off and John's desperate enough to try fighting back. Bane leans against the small house and watches as his men beat John down to the earth again and again until he finally just stays down. The men tie his wrists together with rough rope, hand the long line of it to Bane.

The sand burns his feet on the way back to the jeep. He expects to be tossed into the back, maybe hogtied, and ignored for the rest of the drive. Instead, Bane climbs in and rolls down the window, feeding the rope through, leaving John standing outside.

“Wait, wait-” But the truck is already moving, slower than before, slow enough that John can keep from being pulled off his feet and dragged along by jogging quickly. It hurts, his mouth is dry, his body weak. There hadn't been much food back in Gotham, not that last week especially, and no activity but Bane's abuse and the incredibly one sided fights that lead up to it.

He doesn't know how far he makes it before his legs stop responding, before he's running one second and in the sand the next. The truck keeps going, yanking his arms up and nearly out of their sockets. Sand tears at his face and back through the robes. He tries to get back up, fingers knotting around the rope to pull himself to his knees, anything to get up off the burning sand. He can't. He tucks his head between his arms to gain a little protection and doesn't know whether to hope he dies or lives.

The truck stops, leaving John curled on his side, trying to convince himself to move. To stand back up. His body won't respond, overtaken with tremors that seem like they'll never end. Bane kneels in front of him, a canteen dangling from his fingers.

“Two miles.” He lifts John's head and pours a mouthful of water past his cracked and bleeding lips. John swallows, lets a little spill over to cool his skin. “Do you still want to walk?”

“No.” God no. John grabs at Bane's boots, his pants, fingers scrabbling for purchase.

“And the child learns.” Bane carries him into the truck, curls him into the space between the seats. John spends the rest of the drive with his head leaning against Bane's knee, being fed slow swallows of water.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helpfully beta'd and egged on by forestgreen. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Thank you all for the lovely comments. :) I hope the story doesn't disappoint.

Bane leaves him alone for days after they arrive at the mountain fortress. He locks John in a small, chilly room with no windows and doesn't come back. At first John is grateful. Food appears, and fresh clothes. Always when John is asleep, or in the small closet-like space that hides an old fashioned chamber pot and wash basin. Those get changed too, without him ever seeing a single person and John wonders if the food is being drugged. He's almost certain that it is, but he's not desperate enough to try starving himself to death. Not yet.

As the days pass, without light or any sort of pattern John is just guessing at time again, the isolation begins to wear. He traces out the contours of the room, starting at the bed and working his way around. There is only the one door, heavy wood with no knob on the inside. The bathroom alcove, marked off by a thin curtain. Plain stone walls and then back to the bed again. 

John starts to talk to himself, out loud, just to hear a human voice. He knows it's a bad sign, but he can't bring himself to stop.

When Bane finally comes, John has to dig his hands into the sheets on the bed to keep from reaching for the small electric lamp the man carries. Bane sets it down in the far corner of the room and John's eyes follow the light in spite of the sharp pain it sends through his skull. He squints, the light becoming a watery blur. For the first time he doesn't fight when Bane pushes him down into the mattress. John hates Bane, hates the feel of his hands against John's skin. But after so long alone he finds that he craves any touch, even if it makes him bleed. The pain is almost familiar now and with it comes the knowledge that he hasn't been forgotten in this dank cell. He's thankful that Bane seems to only care about his own pleasure. John's not sure if he could take being forced to arousal by his own rape. His vision spins and blurs, breath short and too quick from the depth of Bane's thrusts. John can't stop the grunts and groans that fall from his lips, tries to muffle them with the pillow beneath his hands.

“No. I want to hear you.” Bane slams forward harder, driving the air from John's lungs. He slaps at the mattress beneath him, shoves the pillow away so that the room is filled with John's pain.

When Bane is done he sits on the edge of the bed, one hand stroking idly back and forth over John's back. John holds as still as he can, tries not to breathe too deeply, afraid that anything he does will shatter the stillness. Then Bane will leave and the light will go with him.

"Would you like to keep the light?" Bane sounds thoughtful, almost surprised with himself. As though the idea has just occurred to him. John knows better, can see the trap for what it is. But he does want to keep the light, desperately. He stares at the light that lets him know the room isn't grey as he'd been imagining but the same sandy color that he'd glimpsed throughout the complex. That there are swirling designs painted on at least part of the wall in faded blues and reds.

"Yes." John says it before he can stop himself, bites his cheek as soon as the word has betrayed him. He hopes, knowing it's in vain, that Bane can't hear the longing in his voice as easily as John can. He knows what comes next; a request, a question, something that he does not want to give up. How desperate is he? How willing is he to do _anything_ for something so simple as a fucking light? How far has he fallen? John tells himself that he won't do anything terrible for it. That he won't give away any secrets, not that he has many left with value. He won't kill for them. He won't help them attack another city the way they did Gotham. He won't- he won't-

"What would you do for it?" Bane's fingers curl around the back of John's neck, turn his head gently to the side so that the light is nothing but a steady glow behind him. He can't see it any more but he can feel it like a weight against his back and his heart thuds painfully in his chest.

"I don't-" His mouth goes dry, his mind blank. What would he do? It's too open, too many options. He would, he finds, do a lot of things to keep the light. He's just not sure which of them would make Bane happy. Which option leaves him the biggest part of his soul.

Bane is, John has learned, patient. He waits, pinning John so that he can't turn to look at the light he needs so badly, his other hand continuing to pet John like a nervous cat. Eventually a knock comes at the door. Bane rises, dresses. John listens to it all without turning his head. He hasn't been able to answer. He closes his eyes before he can hear the click of the light going out, leaves them closed as Bane leaves. This way he can tell himself that the light is still there.

John tells himself a lot of lies, as the days go on. He tells himself that he doesn't feel a spike of relief whenever Bane appears, and when that no longer works he tells himself that it's just because Bane always brings the little lamp now though the offer to leave it is never repeated. John tries to convince himself that it's okay, because it doesn't hurt as much anymore, so he can endure it for the sake of those minutes with the light and the chance to hear another voice even if it's Bane's. That he imagines the little flutter of relief every time Bane's footsteps move down the hall towards him and that he's happy when a day passes without a visit. John tells himself that Gotham is safe. That Gordon found a way. That Batman returned from whatever hell Bane had thrown him into and saved his city.

He tells himself that someone is looking for him. He just has to survive until they can find him. Survive however he has to.

He tells himself that someone will find him. They have to.

It feels less and less true with every rasp of Bane's breath in the dark.

John grows used to the feel of Bane's mask against the back of his neck, the almost pleasant scratch of it over his skin. Bane loves to touch him, when the assault is over. He never lays down with John as if they are lovers, for which John is grateful, but he will sit for what feels like hours and just touch him. John is torn between the desire to crawl over to the washtub to get the feel of Bane's hands off of his skin and the need to stay as close to the light as possible for as long as he can. 

The light usually wins out.

Bane questions him about himself, in the aftermath. John lies. He reaches out with pale fingers to touch the glass housing of the lamp and tells Bane that he is the child of murdered circus acrobats. That his father was a small time criminal double-crossed by a bigger, badder villain. John's parents, in his favorite version of the story, are simple, loving people. They live, retired, in Kansas and farm for pleasure. He weaves lives worthy of a child's story book. Bane knows he's lying, knows it's all smoke, but he asks the same questions again and again. John tells him a different version every time.

John wonders, alone in the dark later, if anyone had ever sat and told a young Bane fantastical stories.

He starts to ask Bane questions of his own, always biting back the ones he really wants to know about. Instead he asks about the group Bane calls the League of Shadows. About Bane himself. Bane tells him his own lies. A man who discovered the secret of immortality and lost everything because of it. A man who wanders the earth for all time, seeking ever to restore the balance of the planet. A pit that restores life but curses the user with madness. A child born in darkness, cursed to pay for a father's crimes. Flying free in the end to avenge the great man's death and set the world ablaze.

Fantasy. But they distract John from the truth until it's time for Bane to leave John buried alive once more.

“You've never asked me about Gotham.” Bane has John's head and shoulders in his lap. It lets him run broad, scarred fingers over the sharp lines of John's shoulders. John hates the position, he feels more vulnerable than ever, but months of fighting have proven to him that the pain isn't worth that small salve to his pride. Bane is just as content to sit and pet John after he's dislocated one of John's shoulders. Bane stares down at him intently, his eyes bright above the mask. Waiting for a reply.

“I didn't think you'd answer me.” John shrugs, a false gesture of disregard to disguise how badly he has wanted to ask. His shoulders rub against the hard muscles of Bane's thighs. “Did Gotham survive?”

Bane laughs. John starts to push himself from Bane's lap but a hand clamps down on his shoulder and he subsides. “So simple, is it? No. Gotham did not survive. The bomb went off and cleansed it from the earth. No longer a whited sepulcher, alluring to the naïve and containing only death. Gotham is a desolate wasteland. A warning for all those who would follow its ways.”

John closes his eyes, pain squeezing tight around his chest.

“Yes. Gotham survived. Your precious Gordon died defending his rotting whore of a city. They spit on his memory and a decade from now none of the people will remember the lessons that they learned under my care. We will have to go in again. Raze Gotham to the ground and salt the ashes.”

John shoves at Bane, snarling and cursing the man. Bane catches his arm by the wrist, squeezing until John feels the bones grind together. 

“Stop. Please.”

“But how can I? You asked me about your beloved city and how can I not answer? It would be cruel, and I am never cruel.” Bane digs the heel of his other hand into the bruise just beneath John's ribs. “Not unduly, at any rate.”

“Fuck-” Bane tightens his grip and John's hand goes numb.

“Language.”

John swallows back his hysterical giggle and stays silent.

“Would you believe me if I said that Gotham was saved by your precious Batman? That Bruce Wayne stood before the people of the city, unmasked, and offered them his technology, his brilliance, if only they would rise up and help him save them? Or that he died saving them? Which story is true?”

“I don't know.”

“No, of course you cannot know.” Bane's hands turn gentle, soothing the pains left in their wake. “But what if I had proof to give you? What would you do to know the truth?”

John looks away from Bane's too knowing eyes. He looks at the lamp, remembers the barbed offer of it that he had failed to take. Can he pass this up too? It's another trap, but it's a better one. John has managed to avoid the open wound of his ignorance of Gotham's fate, telling himself that there was no way to know. But now...a chance. If he's willing to pay the price. He drags his eyes back to Bane's face.

“What do you want?”

John waits for Bane's answer, his heart thumping almost too slowly in his chest. He runs through the list of the things that he will not do. The things that a glimpse of his old life is not worth.

It's a much shorter list than it used to be.

"Control."

John snorts, holds his other arm up to the light so that the bruises are visible. "Yeah. Because I've been running the show up until now." He feels as though he's betraying himself just saying it out loud. As if they both don't already know that John has nothing left but hope and pointless defiance. Bane makes a pleased sound, touches John's cheek with gentle fingers.

"This is not control. This is mere possession." Bane tightens his fingers on John's wrist, then lets his grip fall loose. He slides his grip down John's arm, runs his hand over John's stomach, down between John's legs to dip his fingers into the drying mess smeared over John's ass. "I own you because I am strong enough to take you. But I can only make you do as I desire when I am present." Bane's fingers push into John's entrance without hesitation. John groans, grabbing at Bane's arm. He's too sore for this. "Even this room is merely a cage I have built for you. It _contains_ you. It does not control you. I cannot take your control from you, John. You must give it to me.”

John thinks 'bullshit' to himself but keeps quiet. He knows he doesn't have control. This is some kind of game, pretending that Bane can't take whatever he wants from John whenever he wants to. He knows, can feel it in his skin, that he should say no. Knows that there's a point where surviving becomes something worse and fears that he's reaching that place within himself.

“What would I have to do?” John can hear Bane out. It's just words. He doesn't have to agree. He has a choice, useless as that fact feels.

“I will mark you, as I did in Gotham. You will not fight me.” John hears the desire in Bane's voice. The memory is never very far from John. Hot lights, the certainty that he was going to die then and there. The heavy flow of Bane's piss over his shoulders, his ass. The shame hurts almost as much as the bruises that run along John's arms and sides.

John swallows down the sour taste of bile in the back of his throat. Can he do that? Endure that again, even for news from Gotham? His body goes cold at the thought. But Gotham. Gordon and Wayne. The boys. It hadn't hurt, in the end. Compared to what came after, what Bane has done to him almost every day since, what Bane's asking for is almost nothing. John doesn't want to do it, he doesn't.

“For how long? I mean-” He clears his throat, nervousness making his voice rough. “News isn't worth that for...forever.”

“Bargaining?” The amusement in Bane's voice grates over John's skin. “Two weeks. A pittance. Just you and I, here. A private matter.”

John's mouth works, his mind tripping over the memory again and again. He means to say no, but he can't get the word out. John finds himself nodding silently, and he watches what might be pleasure shine in Bane's eyes.

“And you will give me control of this.” He palms John's limp sex. "You will not touch it without my permission, not even to relive yourself." 

John chokes, his face burning hot with anger. “How can you expect me to agree to _that_? I'm not a fucking kid or some- some- _pet_ you have to house break!” He tries to pull away from Bane but the larger man holds him easily.

“Because you love your precious Gotham more than it deserves.” Bane rocks his hips slowly beneath John's back, growing hard. John's stomach tightens and he twists, one arm still held in Bane's grasp. He slams his elbow into Bane's side, knowing that he's too weak to be able to hit Bane hard enough to really hurt. Bane takes the blow, catches John's arm and pulls it up behind his back until it feels like the limb is about to tear loose from its socket. “Is it such a high price to pay? No one will know but us.”

Bane shoves John forward, pins him to the floor. John curses and writhes, scrapes his face bloody on the rough hewn stone floor. He expects to feel the hard push-stretch of Bane entering him, expects the pain but it doesn't come. Instead Bane rocks against the high curve of John's ass, smearing sticky precome along the line of his spine. “Can you really fall any farther than you already have, John?” Bane's voice is a devil's whisper in John's ear.

John knows that there is always farther to fall.

He wakes later, in what he thinks of as the morning. He limps to the little alcove, nearly tearing the curtain down as he stumbles, and pauses with his toes brushing the cool porcelain of the chamberpot. John can't see it but he stares down through the blackness, his mind slowly ticking over his choices. He scrubs his hands over his face, the rough bristles of his beard scratching against his palms.

John hates that Bane knows him so well. He shuffles away from temptation and starts his daily routine. Twenty slow circuits around the limits of the cell, loosening his muscles and keeping them from completely wasting away. The pressure of his bladder is minimal, easily ignored. He wets his mouth and his lips as he goes, swallowing as little of the water as he can. The stretches are harder, his body sluggish to respond to his demands after answering to Bane's the night before.

John's thirst grows throughout the long hours of the day. He sleeps as much as he can, until the discomfort makes it impossible. Then he lays on his narrow bed and runs through everything he can remember from before. Before Bane. The codes for call outs, the streets, turn by turn, needed to get from One PP to John's apartment or his favorite little restaurant. The names of his foster families, his girlfriends. He drinks only when he can't stand it any longer, when his mouth is parched and his stomach grumbles because the food is never enough to do more than stave off the hunger.

He nearly gives up half a dozen times throughout the day as the pressure from within grows. Tells himself that this is just a game Bane is playing with him. That no matter what hoops he jumps through, no matter how deeply he throws himself down the rabbit hole, there will never be any information about Gotham. He can't, in the end, lose the chance that Bane might be dealing in earnest.

When Bane finally comes John is standing beside the alcove, nearly mad with the need for relief.

Bane smiles, John finds it easy to read his expressions around the mask now, and sweeps the curtain aside for John with the hand holding the lantern. John isn't sure what to expect, this is new, uncharted territory. He takes in the small space, barely enough room for the two of them. Bane steps in behind John, pressing hot against his back.

John starts to move away, to find some small corner to escape. Bane's hand descends on his shoulder, directing him to the right. It's nothing but more blank wall, the floor beneath his feet sloping oddly toward one corner.

“Here? Okay. Okay.” John's hands fumble at his shirt, starting to pull it up over his head. Bane catches the cloth, tugs it back down out of John's grip.

“Just your pants.”

John slips out of the loose trousers, tossing them toward the far corner where Bane had set the lamp. Bane's hands settle on him, one on his hip, the other the back of John's neck and guides him forward. John bends, a quiet groan slipping out of him as the pressure within shifts, growing worse. He braces himself against the wall and counts his own breaths, trying not to squirm, so tense with anticipation that it's nearly painful. Bane's fingers brush against him, making John jump as he runs his hands along the ridge of John's spine through the thin cloth of his shirt. 

It feels as though every ridge of Bane's hands tugs against John's skin. He wants to flinch away, wants Bane to just get it over with already but there's no rushing the man. Bane runs his hands down the backs of John's legs, fingers wrapping easily around the curves of his thighs, his calves. He pulls John's legs apart further, scrapes short nails over the skin at the back of John's knees. John can't hold still at that, jerking forward onto his toes. Bane laughs, does it again. 

Bane spends so much time just touching John, making no move to truly begin that the first splash of piss catches John off guard. It runs in warm, narrow streams over his ass, his spread legs. He can feel a line of it running down the back of his leg and it almost itches, his awareness of it making his own need worse. Bane takes John's dick in his hand, dragging a grunt from John, and covers it in hot fluid that pools in Bane's palm. The heat, the scent, all rise up inside of John and he has to go, he has to go _now_.

“Bane, I need to-” Bane's hand clenches around him, pain setting his teeth on edge.

“Not yet.”

John bites his cheek, his head falling forward to rest against the stone wall. Bane releases him, wipes his cock against John's wet skin. Fingers pierce John, press hard into his tender flesh. Bane works him open as John clenches his legs, almost dancing on the balls of his feet. Every touch makes his need worse and he can hear the slick slap-drag sound of Bane working himself into hardness.

He's expecting it, when Bane breaches him. It doesn't make it easier. The hands on his hips are hot enough to make John sweat, the slow pace that Bane sets driving John deeper and deeper into his need. It's as if each rock of Bane's hips forward presses right against John's bladder, the withdrawals too incomplete to offer any real relief.

John's desperation grows sharper until he's cursing between panting, needy sobs for air. It _hurts_ and god, how has he never realized how much it could hurt to need to take a piss before? But it does, and Bane just keeps fucking him, pain and the ache for relief tangling together until he can't tell one from the other.

“Now.” Bane's mask is cold against John's cheek. He turns into the touch, seeking any relief he can as his mind latches onto the simple permission. John lets go with a muffled scream, and that hurts too, even as it feels so _good_ that John could cry. Bane fucks him through it, somehow wringing more and more out of John's body until he feels limp and boneless.

John sags in Bane's grip, his legs shaking from the strain of holding one position for too long. Bane lifts him, one hand curling around John's stomach, the other at his shoulders. He fucks John in short, sharp jerks of his hips until he comes.

“You've done well.” Bane lifts John free, settling him onto the wet floor in a shivering bundle. A flicker of something like pride goes through John at the praise. The disgust that follows has nothing to do with the sharp scent of Bane that covers everything.

As the days wear on John adapts. It's never exactly the same. John finds himself holding his need to pee through a rough fucking against the wall, his back scraped bloody. Bane lays him along the floor, covers his chest, his stomach. Holds him down on his knees and drenches his face. 

He stops gagging on the smell, stops flinching when Bane lays soft against the curve of his back and lets go, the too hot first flood over his skin making John shiver with what he tells himself is disgust and nothing else. John gets used to the need that builds and builds throughout the day until he can't ignore it anymore, until there is nothing to distract him from the simple need to have Bane walk through his door. It worries him, some nights when he's splayed out on the floor afterward with Bane long gone, how easily he's changed. How weak is he, really, that it takes so little to bend him?

John considers breaking the deal a thousand times. Calling it off and saving what's left of his soul. Then he remembers Gotham, and Gordon's face the last time he'd seen him. Thin and so much _older_ than he'd been when John first started on the force. Wayne too, the angry boy glaring out at John from the smiling man's face.

John keeps track of the days as best he can. His count of fourteen comes and goes but he says nothing. He can't be sure, after all. There's no way to make a mark on the walls or the floor, nothing to rip the sheets with. Nothing to even mark his own body with. And the days all blend together in their sameness, an unending blur of darkness punctuated by Bane's presence.

It's day twenty-one by John's count when he hears Bane's familiar steps coming back down the hall. Surprise and fear send John's heart thudding heavily in his chest. John has just finished cleaning up from Bane's visit, his skin is still damp, hair dripping and heavy from dumping the wash basin over his head. John presses his ear to the door, trying to catch any conversation that might be going on.

There's nothing but silence and then the heavy thump of the lock on the other side being thrown back. John takes several quick steps backward, out of the path of the door, just in time to avoid being hit as Bane throws it open.

“John.”

“What's wrong?” John's hands are tight fists at his sides.

“Nothing.” Bane steps into the room, crowding into John's space as though it isn't there. “It is time for your reward.” 

John's eyes go to Bane's hands. Empty but for the familiar little lamp. Bane takes hold of John's arm and pulls him across the room, out of the way of the door. He's still too intent on finding where Bane is hiding the proof of Gotham's fate to realize, until he hears the lighter steps on stone, the door finally shutting with a muffled boom that they are not alone.

“Shall we sit on the bed?”

John's head whips to the side, her voice and presence as out of place in his little cell as they had been on the plane. Miranda smiles at him, just visible on the edge of the circle of light and settles on the small bed. He can see the folder in her hands. It takes what self control he has left not to yank at Bane's grip on his arm to try to get to that folder.

“Miranda.” John can't keep the hint of disgust out of his voice. Bane's fingers tighten around his arm, almost gentle compared to what John knows he can do.

“Talia, please. We're almost family after all.” She smiles and even in the uncertain light it's beautiful and deadly to look at. John takes a step back, into Bane's massive chest. Bane pushes him forward, guides him until he's seated on the bed with Bane standing behind and a little to the side. “There. Much more civilized.” Another quick smile.

“Yeah. Really nice. What do you want?” John flinches even as he says it but Bane does nothing, doesn't even shift behind him.

“Nothing at all. I'm here to give you what you want.” She holds out the folder. John reaches for it, hand hovering just above it without touching. “Go on. You were promised, were you not? And the League keeps its promises.” Talia holds tight to the folder when he tries to take it from her. “Though I must caution you, it may not be what you really want.”

“I want it.” She releases the folder to him with a look of pity. John ignores her, throws open the folder. It's a thin handful of newspaper clippings, mostly from the _Gazette_. He runs his fingers over the thin paper, the ink smearing slightly beneath his touch. The dates on the articles turn his stomach sour as he scans through them, certain that Talia will snatch the papers away from him at any second. If the dates are right it's been almost five months since John was captured.

_'The memorial service for the officers slain during the final battle for Gotham will begin at 8 a.m. Friday morning. It will be led by the recently reinstated Police Commissioner James Gordon-'_

_'In the end, it was the hero that we had condemned, the man who had allowed his name and reputation to be tarnished in order to give us a chance to redeem ourselves, who saved us. Once again the Batman put Gotham before himself and in the ultimate act-'_

_'-unveiling and dedication of the statue honoring the Batman will take place tomorrow-'_

_'-in spite of the public outcry to get the new Blake Law passed, I have to question whether or not it isn't just an underhanded attempt to get the Dent Act back on the books in a new and more palatable form.'_

John's throat grows tight, the words on the last page blurring. He blinks, forces himself to look at his own picture, the one taken for his detective's badge staring back at him. His obituary, neatly clipped out as if ready to be pressed into some scrapbook.

Five months. If anyone was ever looking, they'd given up long before now.

“No.” The clippings crumple and tear in his hands. John can't breathe, he thinks his heart might have stopped beating entirely. There's nothing but an echoing rush in his ears, pain wrapping in tight bands around his chest as his skin flushes hot and cold.

“I do understand, darling. It's upsetting, isn't it?” Talia's hand is on his wrist. John waits for her nails to sink into the pale skin there and draw blood. She rubs her thumb over the back of his hand instead, pretending to be comforting. “They've learned nothing. Your friends who died, all the pain and fear that Gotham went through and it's all been wasted. The powerful are rising to the top again, preparing to crush Gotham into submission. It's disgusting.” 

Five months. He's been holding on for a rescue that's never coming. That was never coming.

“You're lying.” John jerks his hand back, trying to break her grip. He's shaking. She clucks at him like he's a misbehaving toddler and pulls back, drawing him closer to her. Bane's hand is between his shoulder blades, a warm pressure holding him steady.

It's all been for nothing. He's alone, he's been alone since the beginning. John can't breathe, can't think past a single, simple truth. He's dead. He's been dead for months and there will be no resurrection, no redemption at the end of his torment. Only Bane tearing out more pieces of John's soul until there's nothing left.

“I'm not lying. You know it's true. The elite are soulless, consuming machines. They're using you to claw their way back to the top.” Talia strokes his face, leaning in. “No body, no proof of your death but they've buried you and started to build a new gallows for their victims out of your corpse. Bruce is dead, Gordon is complicit in their new sins just as he was in the old. No one is coming for you, John. You're more useful to them dead.

“They've abandoned you.”

John lunges for her, twists in her grip until he can wrap his hand around her wrist, hold her still. He catches her by the throat and they fall off the bed. John is screaming at her as they hit the floor. She's squirming beneath him as he slams her head into the stone beneath them. He's going to kill her, it's the only thing he can think of, the need to shut her lying mouth for good before Bane stops him.

Pain explodes in his stomach, his head. John is somehow on his back, Talia's fists slamming into his face, his chest. He thrashes beneath her, tries to free his hands but it's useless. Blood fills his mouth. He's coughing and gagging on it by the time she stops.

“Poor boy.” Talia's face swims in John's vision, warping in and out of shape. “I know how much it hurts to lose your whole world.”

“Fuck you.” He spits blood into her face. Talia slaps him as the blood trickles down her cheek.

“So rude.” She's frowning down at him, an almost indulgent look on her face.

“I've been too lenient.” Bane appears behind Talia, the light gleaming on his mask, turning him into a monster.

“You've always had too much kindness in your soul my brother.” She rolls to her feet, graceful. John kicks out at her, at Bane as the man comes for him. He's hauled to his feet, Bane's hand wrapped around his neck like a collar. John's breath grates in his throat as he's lifted until he's face to face with Bane.

“Another lesson.” The door opens at Bane's knock and he throws John out into the hall. John collapses to his knees in the middle of a circle of men. He looks around, his head pounding. They stare back, silent and masked. “Take him.”

John makes them beat him unconscious to do it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Please be aware that this chapter contains suicidal thoughts and a suicide attempt.
> 
> Once again, beta'd by forestgreen. Seriously, you guys have no idea how much forest improves these chapters before you see them.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the comments. I love knowing that you guys are enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it.

John wakes to a cool, damp cloth moving over his face. He jerks back from the touch and hits his head against stone. Pain lances through his skull, bright lights explode in front of his closed eyes and John fights to turn his head before he pukes. Hands hold him steady as he gags, sour, thin fluid trickling over his tongue. When he's done, nothing left but the bitter taste, John forces his eyes open. It hurts, his left eye is swelling shut and he remembers that punch, it's one of the last clear memories of the beating that he has.

He expects to see one of the masked men crouched over him but he recognizes the scarred visage of Bane's Right Hand Psycho instead. His hands are surprisingly gentle as they pass over John's bruises. John can see the sky over Psycho's shoulder, bright blue and clear. Unease snakes along John's spine and he wishes for the quiet, close darkness of his cell where he knows the rules and there is only Bane to fear. John looks away, focuses on Psycho rather than the looming emptiness all around him.

"Tryin' t'make me pretty first, huh? Don't think it's gonna work." John feels like his mouth is full of cotton. He tries to spit but he's got no moisture left so he bares his teeth, feels a cut on his lip pull open and start to bleed again. John wonders if he can knock himself back out before it starts or if Psycho will just wait until he's conscious again. How many men are there, waiting just out of sight for their turn at him? John's fear is a hard knot in his chest, his mind sluggishly working through increasingly desperate escapes.

"None of the cuts are very deep." Psycho's voice is warm, accented. He probes a wound near John's temple. It hurts but the nausea doesn't return. “Can you swim?”

“What?” John stares at Psycho, trying to make sense of the question.

“Can you swim?” Psycho makes little paddling motions with his hands, as though it's the word itself that is the problem.

“Yeah.” His mom had taken him down to the Y every Thursday after school until she died.

Psycho nods and hauls John to his feet. John's head spins for a second and he leans into Psycho's grip a little until the dizziness passes. Everything is too bright, too open for John to look at for long. He hunches in on himself, gritting his teeth through the aching pain the movement causes and focuses on the floor.

They step up onto a wide lip of carved stone and the floor vanishes in front of John's feet. The hole is wide and black, seemingly bottomless. John pulls back from it, fear racing through his veins. “What's- no. I'm not-” John shakes his head, shoves at Psycho. His limbs feel like jelly, like there's no strength left in them. Psycho spins him around, twists until he's pressed up behind John, his grip tucking John's arms in tight to his own body. The pressure draws pained gasps from John's lips.

“There is only one way out. When you have found it, the lesson will be complete.” Psycho shoves him forward. John's bare feet slip over the stone and then there's nothing but air beneath him.

John's scream echoes all around him as he falls, his hands hitting the sides and scraping over rough stone. He bounces from side to side, rocks digging into his back and scrapping along his bruised sides. It takes forever and is over in a second. John is falling and then he's not, cold water slamming into his feet, coming up over his legs, his chest. He goes under almost before he realizes it's happening.

There's no bottom that he can feel. The water stings in his eyes, his open wounds. John kicks, forces his tired muscles to work. His head breaks the surface and John is coughing, spitting out water and dragging in deep lungfuls of wet, heavy air.

John treads water, shakes his head to clear his vision and cranes his head back to look up the shaft. He can see, far over his head, the open hole and Psycho looking back down at him.

“Get me out of here!” John doesn't think about the terror in his own voice.

The only reply is the heavy echo of Psycho's retreating footsteps. John yells until his voice gives out, his arms and legs paddling constantly to keep his head above the water. It's cold and even his thin clothing starts to drag at him, sticking heavily to his body and tangling around his legs as he kicks. His hands brush against the slimy rock walls again and again as he stares up at the small circle of sunlight over his head.

John takes deep breaths and tries to push the panic and despair away. They're doing him no good. Another lesson. “At least there's no truck this time.” John's voice echoes off the walls.

_”There is only one way out.”_

“One way out. Right.” John slides a few inches to the side, until he can press his hands to the wall. He swims around the small space slowly, feeling along the stones just above and below the water line. There's no give to any of them, no hollow spaces. A few jut out here and there, slick and rounded from age but firmly stuck in the walls.

John dives, tries to find the bottom. He finds nothing before he has to turn back. John returns to the walls, to the stones that stick out far enough to form rough hand holds. He reaches up as far as he can, finds another and another.

“This is a shitty, shitty idea, Blake.” He tries to think of something better, but can't. John takes hold of the first stone and begins to climb. The sunlight is weak, so far from the source, but it's enough that he can make out the next hand hold and the next and the next if he takes his time.

The farther he gets from the water, the drier the stones become. His grip grows more confident on the rough rocks. John's arms burn, the muscles in his legs are trembling constantly. He's grateful for the hours spent alone in his cell and the seemingly endless rounds of push-ups, crunches and anything else he'd been able to think of. The circle of light slowly grows larger and larger. He starts to feel a spark of hope. If he can reach the mouth...surely they won't be expecting him to have made it so far so quickly. Not after the beating they'd handed to him.

If he can slip out before they realize...

The stone beneath his hands shifts, the edges of it crumbling away beneath John's fingers. He loses his grip, tries to find another hand hold, tries to jam his feet against the wall to save himself.

John falls, skinning his hands on the rough walls. Tucks himself in as small as he can and slides down until the water rises up to meet him.

John curses and chokes, gasping for air as soon as he resurfaces. He'd been so fucking _close_. John kicks back over to the side and tries to grab onto the first protruding stone again. It's harder this time, his hands slick with blood and water and burning in pain.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” John forces his fingers to obey him, takes hold of the rocks to steady himself. Above him the mouth of the well looks even farther away than it had before. John pulls himself up again, hand over hand. He's moving slower than before, the muscles in his arms aching from the first climb and he tests each handhold more carefully.

He gets maybe ten feet up before his hands freeze up, refusing to cooperate. John tries to cling to the wall but there are no hand holds large enough or close enough together for him to support himself without his hands.

This time when he falls he doesn't have the control to keep from ricocheting into the other side of the well. The impact slams through his body, sending a sharp pain through his back. He cries out as he goes under and the water fills his mouth.

John inhales before he knows what's happening, the cold water lodging in his throat, driving like needles into his lungs. He surfaces and he still can't breathe, the water is a solid _thing_ inside of him. John tries to cough, tries to scream. Nothing comes out but water, a seemingly endless flow and John's vision starts to waver at the edges. There's _no air_ and his heart is pounding, skipping beats beneath his ribs.

John's chest heaves and he's suddenly sucking in air again, coughing and breathing even as it hurts to keep doing it. He almost goes limp in relief, treading water without any thought. John's hands are clamped around the lowest stone so tightly that he's quickly losing feeling in his fingers.

For a long time John does nothing but cling to the wall and breathe. He watches the hole and tries to listen for the sounds of movement above him. There's nothing but the steady progress of the sun across the sky. John knows he needs to try to make the climb again. He knows that all he's doing is growing colder and hungrier with each minute that passes. He still can't make his arms move, can't force himself to reach up and start the trek one more time. The sky changes above him, the light slowly shifting to reds and golds, darkening to the purples and blacks of nightfall. The sun goes down and John is left in utter darkness once more.

The morning finds John half frozen and fighting to stay awake. He's dozed off maybe half a dozen times during the night, the chilly splash of water against his face waking him each time. John watches the sky grow light and waits for the appearance of Bane or Psycho.

John coughs, a little at first and then more heavily as the day goes on. His nose grows stuffy, swollen. The congestion spreads until he can feel the painful rasp of it with every breath, the air catching in his lungs. It makes his mouth go dry, scratches his throat raw. John takes handfuls of the water in, trying uselessly to soothe the ache.

He finally admits, when the sun is high over head, that no one is coming. The realization hurts, a sharp slice of new pain over an old wound. John curses himself for it and ignores the heavy drag of that pain on his limbs.

John tries the climb again.

He makes it only a few feet before his clumsy grip falters and he's back in the water.

John tries to make the climb over and over as the day wears on.

The exercise, forcing his arms and legs to move, warms him a little but it never seems to touch the aching chill that has settled into John's bones. Each climb is shorter, his hands losing their grip or missing the next stone entirely. John spends more and more time in the water, shivering and hacking, telling himself that he's resting for the next attempt. He struggles to ignore the hunger that starts to gnaw at him with sharper and sharper teeth. John's been hungry before, it's nothing new. He won't let it beat him. The water doesn't taste bad but he still drinks as little of it as he can manage. Even if it was clean before, John has fouled it by his very presence. Blood and dirt that he's carried into it with him...and other things.

John hits his head on the third or fourth fall. He falls badly, tries to catch himself for one wildly improbable second and feels the sharp snap of bones breaking in his wrist. The pain is immediate, shooting up through his arm and he draws it in close to his body. John hears his head hit the wall more than he feels it and there is a new, greater pain that fills him just before the world goes empty. The water wakes him as he goes under and John finds, staring up at the unreachable circle of light through the wavering lens of the water, that he's not afraid of it anymore. It's quiet beneath the surface, almost peaceful. His lungs start to burn. Not demanding yet, just making their needs known.

John awkwardly claws his way up out of habit more than any desire to actually take another breath. He clings to the wall with his good hand, keeping the broken wrist close to his chest, and stares down at the surface of the water, at his own faint and sickly reflection in it.

_No one is coming._

It's true.

Wayne is dead. Gordon thinks John is dead.

Bane...is not coming. No one is coming for him. He's been abandoned, truly abandoned, again. John understands that now. There is only one way out of the hole and John is beginning to suspect that it is not by going up but by going down that he will find his escape.

As the sky begins to grow dark, he thinks he hears footsteps above, quiet voices that find their way down to him. John holds as still as possible and listens, straining to make out words, to discover if the noises are real. They stop and don't come again; there is nothing except for the gentle splash of the water against the walls and John's own breathing. As the night closes over John's head he can feel the desolation settling into his bones, alongside the hunger. 

John's legs kick only slowly now and he clings to the wall without trying to climb it again. There's no point. He's cold, but when he reaches up to wipe water out of his eyes John can feel the burning heat beneath his skin. His eyes burn and his head aches in time with the ragged drag of his breathing. John's coughing fits leave him light headed and sick to his stomach. He coughs up thick, heavy phlegm and spits it out as far away from himself as he can.

The night creeps by and John watches the darkness around him. He hears things in the well, faint echoes of voices that he knows can't be real. Once, out of the corner of his eye, John thinks that he sees someone beside him. A thin, translucent form that hovers just above the water, mouth open in a silent scream. John flinches from it, shuts his eyes tight and mumbles the fragments of prayers he remembers from the orphanage. When he opens his eyes the thing is gone, was probably never there to begin with. He's not sure which thought is worse; that he's losing his mind down here or that there's something with him in the dark.

John is _tired_ , so tired that he can think of nothing but sleep and escape and how they can be the same thing here, if he only has the nerve to just close his eyes and let it happen.

The moon is a thin crescent of light peeking over the edge of the well when John leans his head back against the wall for the last time. He can't keep it up, can't keep waiting for some miracle that's never coming. He closes his eyes and lets the heavy mix of pain and exhaustion carry him away.

He dreams of being cocooned in warmth, cradled and rocked like he is a small child again. There are hands around him, wrapping him tight and they make him feel safe. John drifts in their embrace as they begin to grow tighter, their grip harder until it hurts. He cries out and something solid fills his mouth, burns in his nose. John thrashes against the embrace, trying to loosen their hold. He wants to go back to being warm, to being at happy. But the pain won't ease, grows worse and John opens his eyes reluctantly, fighting against the weight that holds them down.

He's under water. The moon is a distant, disjointed object that sends beautiful, fractured shards of light into the murky depths around John. His body bucks, his lungs straining as all of his muscles go tight, laying him out in a quivering arc. His mouth and throat are full of water and it feels wrong, jarring. John tries to breathe out, then back in, his body demanding air that just doesn't exist. There is only the water, sliding deeper into John, becoming a part of him. It hurts but the pain is slipping away, leaving him flushed warm and limp. His vision goes red tinged and pinprick narrow and there is only the slowing thump of his own heartbeat in his ears.

John embraces the nothingness that follows.

He comes to in pain. John feels like he's been hit across the chest with a baseball bat and his left wrist is a burning ball of agony. There are lips against his, warm breath is being passed between them and John can feel a hand under his chin, holding his head steady. Another cough wracks John and the man above him pulls away, rolls John's head to the side.

John fights against the grip, forces his head back up before he opens his eyes. “Psycho.” His voice is a rough croak. The painful scratch of it sets off another round of coughing that feels like it should draw blood. When it passes, Psycho is sitting back on his heels, watching John with a small, cruel smile on his lips.

“Have you learned your lesson?” Bane's voice is like a physical blow. John flinches, feels the scrape of stone against his back.

“Wh-” John coughs again, his head swimming until he can catch his breath. “What?”

Bane makes a disappointed sound and John wants to scream. He doesn't understand, can't think through the pain and his exhaustion. He just wants everything to be over.

John doesn't fight when Psycho forces him back down into the well. The fall is familiar, the embrace of the water almost a comfort. He can't paddle, his left hand is useless. John leans his head back, looks up. He knows that they have to be there, they can't have left so quickly, but they're not watching him. John can't keep his head above the water, the muscles in his legs cramp, refuse to work.

Dying is easier the second time around.

Being forced back to life isn't.

Psycho's face is unreadable as he stares down at John. Bane's voice seems to come from everywhere at once, a metallic echo that reverberates inside John's head. John tries to find him, tries to move, but Psycho holds him still. There are things moving behind Psycho, colors and shapes that spin and twist across the sky as John coughs and fights to get one clean breath.

“Have you learned the lesson?”

“I don't _understand_.” John feels like he's still in the water, as though it's clogging his lungs. “I don't know what you want!”

“Yes, you do.”

Psycho drags John back to the edge of the well. John stares down into the void, resists the push of Psycho's hands on his back. “Please. Just let me die. Please.”

“That is not the will of my brother Bane.” Psycho leans in close enough that John can feel the scratch of stubble against the side of his neck. "There is a way out, little brother. You just haven't found it yet."

John falls again. He manages to find one of the holds with his good hand this time as he kicks weakly to the surface after going under. It's hard to think about anything but those small moments of peace between death and resurrection, but John tries. They won't let him die. They'll just keep bringing him back, over and over again until he's nothing but a drooling shell. Death is not his path to freedom. John can't climb out, not now, not before when he had both hands and wasn't flushing hot before descending into a shiver that rattles his teeth.

"You have to give him what he wants, son."

John startles, the sound of Gordon's low, rough voice is right in his ear. When he turns there's no one there. Only his wet tomb. John reaches out with his wounded hand, stretching until he hits the other side of the well. Nothing.

"I don't know what he wants. I don't know what to do." John looks into the darkness, waiting for the phantom to return, or maybe something new. His coughs echo roughly in his ears.

"Yes, you do." A woman's voice this time, stirring old, painful memories and John thinks he sees something moving beneath the water. 

“Mom?”

"It's all right, sweetie. You've fought long enough. It's time to rest. Come rest with us." Hands wrap around his ankles, crawl up his legs. It's only the hands that touch him but he can see long arms that vanish down deep into the water beneath him where the light can't reach. Bone shows through in places where the swollen, rotted flesh has fallen away. John chokes on his next breath, unable to move. There are more of them beneath him, floating and swimming. John catches glimpses of movement, white bone that gleams through tears in dark skin, eyes glowing with strange lights.

John screams, and it's Bane's name that scours his throat as it rushes from him. Small rocks rain down and John knows that Bane is coming, can hear the easy pulse of his breathing through the mask. The things below him shriek and giggle without sound. John can't look away, afraid that if he does they will swamp him, drag him down with them.

"John?" Bane is within reach above him, arms and legs pressing into the walls to steady himself. John catches glimpses of the harness and rope holding Bane up as he tries to look at Bane and keep an eye on the creatures at the same time. 

"Don't leave me down here. Please. Not with them."

Bane's fingers brush against John's cheek and he leans into the touch with his entire body. "Have you learned the lesson?"

"Yes." John lets go of the rock, clings to Bane's arm with his good hand. The only thing keeping him from being dragged down by the skeletal grip on his legs is Bane's strength. 

"And what have you learned?"

"I-" John fumbles for the words, trying to fit everything together out of the jumbled cacophony in his head. "I can't-" A coughing fit jars John's grip and he starts to slip, the water pulling him in. Bane catches him by the upper arm and lifts him without any effort at all. "-escape."

"There is nothing left for you to escape to. You are mine." Bane's fingers tighten and John bites his cheek to keep from letting the pained gasp out. He can feel one of the long cuts on his arm open beneath Bane's grip. “Say it.”

John focuses on Bane's face as he feels an ice cold finger run down the back of his neck. “Yours. I'm yours.” The phantom hands dig into his legs, sharp pains that make him kick. “Please. Anything. Just please-” 

Bane makes a pleased hum as he shifts his body's position, freeing his other arm. He takes hold of John and lifts him from the water until he can cradle John's wet form against his chest. The hands trail down his legs as he rises until they fall away completely. “Here.” Bane guides John's good arm around the back of his neck. The position steadies him but pins his broken wrist between their chests.

Pain whites out the world for a dozen heat beats and when it clears they're already half-way up the shaft, Bane climbing using only one hand on the rope. His boots hit the stones hard enough that John expects the walls to come crashing down with each step. Dirt and chunks of stone do fall down in their wake and John listens to them hit the water far below. He lets his head fall forward to rest against the broad plain of Bane's chest, unable to fight the aching pain in his head and neck any longer. 

They reach the top of the well and John knows that he's lost time somehow because he's on his back on stone that still retains some heat from the day and he can't remember the last few minutes of the climb. Bane is kneeling beside him, John's broken wrist held carefully in one hand. Psycho is touching the bruised flesh, poking with gentle curiosity. The touch hurts, reawakens the pain coiled around those bones. Bane and Psycho speak quietly together, leaving John to catch only one word in twenty. 

“-broken, but the swelling isn't too severe.”

“-feverish. He spoke of-”

“-to be expected, brother – easier to move him -”

John lets their voices fade away until they're nothing but background noise to the grating rasp of his own breath and the slow throb of John's blood rushing through his body. The moon is mesmerizing, dancing and shimmering with colors that rise like heat waves across its surface. John doesn't hear the rest of their discussion, doesn't notice Bane wrapping John's hand carefully before settling it gently on the floor.

A quick, sharp prick of pain at his elbow brings John back to earth in time to watch Psycho finish drawing blood from him. Bane lifts John to his feet as soon as Psycho is finished and guides his stumbling, dragging steps back toward the fortress.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: The end of this chapter contains mention of someone who is depressed/sick and not eating properly. This is why I've added the tag warning for Eating Disorder. I'd rather possibly over warn than under warn. On that note, if you see anything you think I should have warned for and failed to do, please let me know so that I can correct the problem. I do my best to be careful about warnings but I'm unfortunately still only human.
> 
> Thank you all for the wonderful comments! I love reading them and I hope you guys are still hanging around after all this time!
> 
> I have to apologise for the long delay. Life decided to happen at me for a while in a way that was less than conducive to writing. I'll do my best to not have there be such a long time between updates again.
> 
> Beta'd, as always, by forestgreen. Who is long suffering and eternally patient. All remaining mistakes are mine.

John falls between one step and the next. He doesn't remember the fall, he just knows that one moment he's focused on the goal of the door and the next he's on the stone floor with Bane looming above him. John tries to get to his feet but he can't move, can't do anything but cough. Psycho's voice comes from somewhere far away and then Bane is lifting him. John tries to speak, to tell Bane that he can walk, he just needs a minute. He opens his mouth to gasp for the air to speak and the world starts to spin. Everything whirls around inside John's head as Bane stands with John cradled in his arms and the only thing that comes out of his mouth is filthy, watery bile that spatters against Bane's dark shirt.

Someone, Psycho, John thinks dizzily, laughs as Bane makes an unhappy sound. John wants to apologize, fear coiling in his stomach beneath the pain and exhaustion but then everything slides away in a quiet rush that leaves John in perfect, quiet blackness.

John runs on legs that drag as if they were made of lead through familiar streets grown strange in their eerie emptiness. He can see Gordon ahead of him, just out of reach, running hard for the base of Wayne Tower. The wrongness of the city around him echoes in his bones, but every time he tries to call out to Gordon the other man slips away to the edge of John's vision. John is left behind, gasping and fighting to keep up, to keep an eye out for the people who should be all around them but aren't.

They slip into Wayne Tower through the parking garage and John catches only glimpses of Gordon moving up the stairs. His mouth goes dry and his lungs are seizing up on him, almost refusing to pull in the air he needs to keep going. John's grip on his gun is steady in spite of the trembling in his fingers and the chill sweat that has broken out all over his body. This is wrong, too easy. It has to be a trap. John can't speak, can't get anything out through the narrow corridor of his throat and Gordon just keeps climbing, trusting John to be there and have his back.

“Here.” Gordon stops, already turning the door handle to let them onto the floor. John wishes for his riot gun as he covers Gordon's back, slides into the room beyond.

He has a second to take in the room, to see Foley and some of the other members of the resistance huddled in a far corner, surrounded by the escapees from Blackgate and then he's turning to the right, trusting Gordon to cover the left. John expects the sight that greets him, Bane's men with weapons trained on him. He doesn't expect the hard press of a gun barrel to the back of his neck.

“Don't move, John.” Gordon's voice is as steady as the mouth of his gun against John's skin. John freezes, allows his weapon to be taken from his hand.

“Why?” John watches the men in front of him, can see the larger form of Bane behind them all. Waiting for him.

Gordon doesn't answer. John closes his eyes and wishes that he was more surprised at the betrayal.

When John opens his eyes he's on his back in a room filled with light. It's too hot, too bright. Too open. His mouth is dry, his eyes gummy and his chest hurts. John tries to push himself up into a sitting position and pain spirals through his left arm. Broken. Yes.

“Hold him still.” Psycho's voice, from off to the side. Bane appears above John, hands coming to rest against John's shoulders to pin him back to the bed. John thinks he can see thin, colored streams of vapor coming out from Bane's mask. They spin and twine around in a nauseating whirl that makes the room tilt and spin until John closes his eyes against it.

He's in his little apartment bathroom, climbing over the edge of the tub to get at a bag that hangs off of the shower head. The snakes inside writhe, causing the cloth to expand and contract as if the whole thing is trying to give birth. John opens the bag and a narrow, bright red head emerges.

The snake looks dangerous, all vivid warning colors and sharp spikes that run down the length of its body. John grabs it by the head, holds the deadly jaws shut as he slides the bag closed before the rest of them can escape. The snakes tail lashes out, cuts his arm with the sharp barbs of its skin. John's fingers are almost numb with the force of his grip, fighting against the unbelievable strength of the snake as it fights to get free. He starts to take a step backward, with the snakes body wrapped painfully tight around his wrist. The snake hisses, muffled and deep in its body and the noise sounds so much like _Bane_ that John jerks in shock. His fingers lose their desperate grip and the snake is free.

It flexes and bends back on itself as John jumps backward, trying to flee the monster wrapped around his arm. Light gleams off of the clean curve of fangs as the snake opens its mouth wide and then comes the small, burning pain in his hand. The snake strikes and strikes again, moving up John's arm. He screams and tries to take hold of the slick, flexing creature. It's too late. John can already feel the burn of the poison rushing through his veins, the pounding of his own heart killing him.

The first bite, the one on the back of his hand is turning red and beginning to swell, the flesh around it growing green-black and putrid. The snake is burrowing into his arm, the head already deep inside the muscle where it is biting over and over, ripping him apart. John claws at his skin, trying to tear himself open to get at it.

A hand tightens on his wrist, pulls his bloody fingers away from where the snake is sliding deeper into his arm. John turns to beg them to help him and he's in the too bright room again with Bane forcing his arm down beside him on the bed. He can still feel the snake in his left arm, sharp teeth cutting him apart from the inside, the venom boiling through his veins and dissolving him.

“-out. Get it out!” He pulls against Bane's grip, fighting to get his hand around the snake before it slips entirely into him.

Bane says something, the rumble of his voice vibrates through John's skull, but the venom has found its way into his brain and John can't understand him, can't get anything out through the heat that cuts through him leaving cool numbness behind. The pain recedes and John follows it.

John crawls under his bed, clutching the worn soft body of Mr. Pig to his chest with one aching arm. His parents are fighting, yelling and throwing things. Screaming wordlessly as they stomp around the apartment. Each crash makes John flinch and burrow further back until he finds the wall, until he's sure that no one can see him. His cheek hurts where Daddy hit him and his fingers feel funny and swollen where Mommy grabbed them, but he won't cry. He's not a _baby_ , even if he does need Mr. Pig to sleep.

John buries his face in Mr. Pig's tummy and wishes Mommy and Daddy would just go away.

He opens his eyes and the room is dim, but still bright enough to make John squint. Someone is screaming in the next room, a high pitched, angry sound. It takes John a too long minute to recognize the inconsolable cry of a baby and not a woman in pain. John shifts, trying to find a comfortable position. The sheets beneath him are sticky and hot against his skin. He finds that he can't move his arms more than a few inches. He cranes his neck around until he can see the wide, padded cuffs locked around his wrists. John flexes his fingers and the hard edge of a cast presses into his palm.

"Hello?" His voice is rough, like glass over asphalt. The baby's cries grow muffled, moving further away from where John lies. A shock of black hair appears at the edge of John's vision, sticking up wildly over a small, pale face and brilliant blue eyes. The child watches him for a second and then vanishes. John can hear uneven footsteps hurrying through the room and then a door clicks open.

Heavier, steady footsteps cross the room and Psycho leans over John. The child reappears, watching them both with an intense silence.

"Tim seems to think your fever's broken. Can you tell me where you are?"

"No."

Psycho smiles, amusement clear in his expression. "Well that's an improvement." Psycho turns to the boy and starts to speak as he works, testing John's skin, checking his pulse and fiddling with the IV bag hanging beside the bed. He speaks in the now familiar, musical language that they all seem to use, receiving only nods or quiet negative grunts from his young student. For all that either of them pay any attention to anything John tries to say he might as well be a training dummy. Eventually he stops trying, almost relieved that he doesn't need to try and think through the shaky sense of exhaustion that covers him.

John closes his eyes and lets everything drift by him, even the distant pulses of pain that come when Psycho tests the bruised and broken places of John's body. Tim's touch follows everywhere behind Psycho and it's always feather soft. Not unsure, but careful in a way that John knows too well. John feigns sleep until they've finished, until he hears a door shut somewhere behind him. Only then, when he is finally alone, does John give in and fall back into a shallow sleep.

If he dreams, he doesn't remember it.

When John wakes next, the light in the room is lower, richer. Bane appears out of a shadowed corner to stand beside the bed. John watches him and waits, the silence of the room broken by Bane's rasping breaths and John's wet, hacking coughs. He can feel Bane's eyes moving over him, examining him. John wants to sink into the mattress and disappear. When Bane ran his hands over John in the dim light of his little cell it was bad enough; the clear cataloging of what Bane owned transmitted through the way he touched John had made John squirm. Here, now, in the warm light after...after the well...it's worse in a way John can't find the words for. 

“You have harmed yourself.” Bane touches the mass of bruises and scratches that cover John's arm around the IV. It hurts in a distant way, the throbbing beneath his skin sets off a minor chorus of aches and pains in the rest of his body.

“I wasn't-” John breaks off, the words catching in his throat. The coughing fit leaves him dizzy and short of breath. Bane holds a glass of ice cold water against John's lips as he takes a few painful sips. The chill settles into the raw heat of his throat, making it easier to breathe. John knows the respite is temporary and he savors it. “I didn't mean to.” 

“Of course not.” Bane finds the bruises again but he doesn't press this time, only strokes his rough hands over John's skin. John feels worn down to the bone, his head spinning, and he has to fight to keep his eyes from closing. Eventually John falls asleep to the rhythmic slide of Bane's hand over his arm.

The cuffs come off some time the next day, the IV following the day after that. Psycho and Tim the Boy Assistant make regular visits, checking to make sure that John is healing. Psycho keeps up a steady patter of explanation that John can't understand and Tim never says anything at all. John sleeps, unable to work up the energy to do anything else. He eats what Bane brings him; warm, clear broths that soothe the prickling burn in his throat, settle into his stomach and ease the aches of his body for a little while. John eats because Bane expects it, but he takes in as little as he can get away with, his hunger notable only for its complete absence now.

There's something like comfort in this strange new room that is dimly lit by narrow windows but is still too bright, when Bane brings him food and sits silently, watching him eat. Bane carries John to the small bathroom and holds him as he pisses into the oddly modern looking toilet; and John can feel jagged pieces settling into place inside of himself. This is something he knows, something that has come through the rabbit hole of the well. It's an anchor and John clings to it.

When John is finished, Bane sits him on the edge of a large tub in the corner of the bathroom. John shifts as the cold from the tile beneath him seeps through the thin fabric of his pants and waits to see what Bane will do. He's been expecting this since he woke up, anticipating a return to his new normal. John breathes unsteadily and reminds himself that he has lived through this before.

Bane kneels beside the tub and braces John with one hand wrapped around his hip, leaning over to reach behind John. A moment later the familiar, lost sound of running water fills John's ears. It's strange enough in this ancient place that he jumps, turning to see if it's true. 

“This section of the fortress is newer than what you have seen before.” Bane pulls the stopper as the water hisses and steams. John has to close his eyes and shake his head, the small movement making him dizzy for a split second. There is something so surreal about Bane doing something so _normal_ that John has to wonder if he's still dreaming. “I thought you would appreciate a real bath.”

“Y-yes.” John nods and it feels like he's one of those bobble-heads, bouncing and bouncing, only held together by a thin spring. He stifles the next cough and breathes in as deeply as he can, letting the hot, moist air rising up from the water ease the raw flesh of his throat. John fumbles one handed with the hem of his shirt, a spark of eagerness kindling in his chest. He can feel days of sweat and grime caked into his skin and he suddenly needs it gone.

Bane stops him, pulls the sweat-stained cloth from John's weak fingers and guides it up over his head and arms with an ease that John would not have expected. He lifts John slightly, one arm around his waist, and then John is naked, grateful that the tile has had a chance to warm up beneath him. Bane slides John into the tub slowly, the water hot enough to be almost painful as John sinks in.

He's fine as the water rises over his legs, up around his hips. It's happening so fast and John is so focused on how incredible it feels that it's not until the water is lapping at his stomach and he's still sinking in lower that John's heart lurches. The heat of the water drops away and John can taste the slick, mineral sour water of the well in the back of his throat. He chokes on it, his heels hitting the bottom of the tub hard and John starts to kick, thrashing awkwardly as he tries to get out. 

“Be calm, there is nothing here that will harm you.” Bane catches him, hands wrapping around John's upper arms and holding him down, holding him still. John can hear the thin, breathless noise that he's making and he hates it, hates how broken it sounds but he can't stop. Bane's hands hold him tightly against the hard side of the tub. The scrape of Bane's mask over the back of John's neck the only thing that penetrates through John's certainty that he's going to slip under the water again, that he hasn't escaped at all and the few comforts of the last few days are just fever dreams.

Eventually the pain from Bane's grip on his arms and the almost gentle brush of his mask over John's skin are enough to sink through the panic. Bane is real, Bane is there and he had come for John. He isn't alone, isn't trapped in the dark with the dead. This is real. John is broken, but alive. John can taste his own blood in his mouth. He's bitten through his cheek in his fear but the water is clear and warm and he can see the bottom if he looks. He sags in Bane's grip, the high voltage tension leaving him in a wave of relief.

“I'm sorry.” John's voice is a bare whisper, his throat burning with pain. Bane is still and silent for a long beat and then his grip on John's arms eases.

“Such things happen. It will fade with time.” He moves a little bit away and John stays leaning against the side of the tub, holding his cast just above the water. It's ridiculous, he's already soaked the thing in his panic, but John can't bring himself to drop the arm deliberately. He thinks that he should start washing, before Bane grows tired of waiting and hauls him out. Before John can even begin to look around for the soap Bane touches the back of John's neck, fingers rough and warm. “Sit forward.”

John starts to move but as soon as his back leaves the solidity of the wall panic starts bubbling just under the surface of his skin. He leans back and waits for Bane's wrath. “I can't. I don't think I can-” John shudders in spite of the warmth that surrounds him and risks looking over his shoulder at Bane. He's watching John, his eyes giving away none of his thoughts.

“You will.” Bane slides his hands into the water, pushing against John's back until he's clear of the wall. The fear knots in John's stomach and he reaches back, fumbling until he finds Bane's arm. John holds onto Bane tightly enough that his fingers start to ache with the strain and the knot eases a fraction inside of him.

John hears the soft splash of something being dipped into the water and then something soft and warm is running over his shoulders, trailing water down the curve of his spine. He holds his breath; the slow, rhythmic motion of Bane running the soapy cloth over his shoulders, down his arms and his back twists inside of John. A small part of him wants to pull away, to grab the cloth from Bane and wash himself, even knowing that it will only end in pain. He can't do it, not with his grip on Bane the only thing keeping the jittering fear John can feel beating at his chest at bay.

And it feels good. John finds himself rolling his shoulders, unconsciously shifting to give Bane better access to his chest and stomach. He stares fixedly at a tiny chink in the far wall as Bane's hand slides up and down his legs, lifts John's limp cock and washes it with the same gentle disinterest as he has the rest of John's body.

Bane doesn't linger, doesn't try and turn the touch into anything more. A faint echo of embarrassment, of shame, still stirs deep in the back of John's mind. It flickers and grows as Bane rinses the cloth and starts moving over John's body again, the heat of his hand burning through the thin cloth to brand John everywhere it touches.

“You don't need to do this.” John whispers and tells himself he's trying to spare his voice. “I can wash myself.”

“I know.” Bane sounds amused but he never stops running the cloth over John, moving in slow, intimate circles that leave John's skin tingling and light in their wake. “But you are mine, John.” He can hear the expectation in Bane's tone and John swallows down the bitter taste at the back of his throat.

John can't bring himself to say what he knows Bane wants to hear. The words lodge in his throat like a fist. Silence fills the room as the pressure of Bane's fingers grows harsher until John ducks his head in a quick nod, acknowledging the statement, accepting it. He is Bane's, even if he can't repeat the words.

“A wise man takes care of his possessions, of those things which he has been given responsibility for.” Bane's touch moves carefully over the healing wounds of John's body, the small twinges of pain barely registering through the welcome, soothing heat and the simple pleasure of being touched and held. “Can you understand that, John?”

John nods and closes his eyes. He remembers the first day of school, after his father had died and he'd been placed in the orphanage. The backpack Fr. Reilly had given him hadn't been new, or covered in cartoons like the other kids' at school, but it had been his. He can still remember tucking it in close to his body in the halls, hiding it under his cot at the orphanage to keep it out of the hands of the bigger boys. John remembers the few toys, just one new one every Christmas, and how careful he had tried to be with them all. He can still feel the choking, blinding rage when they'd been stolen or broken by other angry little boys or his temporary brothers and sisters at the foster homes that never lasted. 

Yes, he understands taking care of what you own. And Bane owns him, doesn't he? For now. John picks up his tattered and stained mantra, _this is temporary, just until you're stronger, until you see the right chance_ , and starts to run it through his mental fingers once more. John fights to bury the voice in the back of his mind that whispers of how much easier it would be to give in. He does his best to ignore the way the gentle sweep of cloth over his tired body makes his throat go tight and his muscles sag in relief.

John winds up leaning bonelessly against the side of the tub as Bane finishes, eyes closed tightly against the cascade of warm water that Bane pours over his hair to wash out the soap. Bane pulls at John's hair, a spark of pain that shivers down John's spine. The grip on his hair forces John's head back and John's body follows until his back is pressed against the gently sloping end of the tub, the hard edge pressing at the base of John's skull. The water is up around his shoulders like this, tiny waves lapping against the base of John's throat every time he moves.

John props his broken arm up along the rim of the tub and concentrates on Bane's face, on the quiet sounds of his movements beneath the ever present drag of his breath through the mask. Bane smears thick foam over John's face, covering his scraggly, patchy beard. The anticipation of getting rid of the itchy growth lasts until Bane raises a straight razor into John's view.

“Woah.” John pushes against the tub, trying to sit up but Bane's free hand is on his shoulder, pressing him back down and the blade is pressing into the skin of John's cheek before he sees Bane move.

“I recommend that you hold very still, John.” The blade slides over John's cheekbone in a line of pressure so quickly that John doesn't feel the sting of the cut until Bane is already dipping the razor in the water beside John's hip. It's a small wound, John can feel the tug of it in his skin when he fights to swallow down another bout of coughing, but he understands. He lays his head back and holds as still as he can, eyes following the flash of the razor through the air.

Bane's movements are smooth and the razor scrapes easily over John's cheeks. It feels good, in spite of the twisting certainty in his stomach that the blade is going to cut deeply into his flesh at any second. Bane's hand cups the back of John's neck, holds him steady and shifts his position as Bane desires. As the razor cuts away the months of tangled, scratchy growth John can feel the air against his face, light and cool. He can hear the slick drag-scrape of the razor and it fits somehow, fills the silences between Bane's breathing and John's own.

“Talia did this for me, in the Pit.” Bane isn't looking at John's face, his eyes following the razor, seeming to linger over the pale skin the each swipe reveals. “She was so small in the beginning that she had to hold the blade with both hands. Even then her focus was strong, her determination to do something for me to repay me was...” Bane breaks off, shaking his head. “Talia has ever been a force of nature. Much like the sun.”

“The Pit's real?” John does his best to speak without moving his lips. He wracks his sluggish memory for the stories that Bane had told him in his cell. He can recall only bits and pieces, things that make no sense. John had thought that the Pit was a _story_ , some local, mythical purgatory. If it's a real place, if half the things that he can remember are true, then it's no wonder Talia is so full of sharp edges. Or that Bane is Bane.

Bane runs the blade just beneath John's right ear, turning his head to the side to check his work.

“It is hell on earth.” Bane turns John's head the other way, a low note in his voice that discourages any further conversation as much as the shine of sunlight on the blade.

Bane tilts John's head back and the razor is against John's throat. John sucks in a shallow breath and holds it until his throat burns. Bane runs the backs of his fingers across John's cheek in that old, intimate gesture and John can hold his breath no longer. As it explodes out of him, hacking and convulsing through his body, John flinches in anticipation of the sharp pain from the razor gliding through the thin skin of his throat.

It never comes. Bane pulls away, waits until John's breathing smooths out before returning to his task. It takes only a few more long, easy swipes and then Bane is running his hands over the smooth, clean skin of John's throat. Bane explores John slowly, finding every cut and bruise and learning them, mapping out the changed geography of John's body. John shifts with each new discovery, unable to stop the small responses even as he knows that they are what Bane is seeking.

He knows what's coming, is unsurprised when Bane's touch goes from merely possessive to _interested_. Bane lays John out on the floor and spreads him open, fingers slick and too large. And always, in the end, not large enough. John's breath explodes out of him with Bane's first thrust, and his fingertips scrape along the tile that cuts into his back with each snap of Bane's hips. He expects to be crushed beneath Bane's body, to have to fight for each breath. But Bane holds himself over John, arms braced on either side of his head as Bane spills himself inside of John's overheated body.

Days pass and John starts moving around on his own as soon as the coughing becomes less jagged, his breathing easing into a rasp that burns but no longer causes him to choke. At first all he can do is stand shakily, hand held out to catch himself if he started to fall and wait for the room to stop spinning. John takes short trips around the bed when he can make himself get up, working until he can make the trip without holding on.

When he finally trusts his legs to walk across the open floor he makes it no farther than the far wall of the room. Psycho and Tim the Silent find John sitting slumped against the cool stone wall beside the locked door to the bathroom, his head pounding. John glares at them weakly, his knuckles torn and covered in dried blood from where he'd punched the wall in screaming frustration. John had yanked and kicked at the door, fighting until he'd been forced to the floor, legs too weak to hold him upright for another second.

“This seemed like a good idea to you, did it?” Psycho gets his shoulder under John's arm and lifts him to his feet.

“The door's locked and I need to pee.” John grinds his teeth together as each step jars his overfull bladder. He'd just wanted to take care of one thing on his own, to reclaim that tiny sliver of independence.

“You've been ill, little brother.” Psycho settles John back against the pillows and summons Tim over with a short wave of his hand. “Do you know how long you lay in this bed before you regained your mind?”

“A couple of days.” John clears his throat, sipping at the small glass of water Tim hands him. The sun is low through his windows, there are hours yet until Bane will come for him if he keeps to his usual pattern. John needs to pace himself, walking a careful line between the relief that the water brings his still raw throat and the clear message of the secured door to the bathroom.

“A week and a half.” Psycho takes the glass from John's hand and pushes him down until he's lying almost flat on his back. John lets him, surprise stealing what little strength he has. “You will recover, but you have been through much. There is no shame in needing time to heal.”

Tim taps on Psycho's arm, drawing both of their attentions to him. He points to himself, then to John and walks two fingers over the palm of his other hand. Psycho frowns down at Tim before rolling his shoulders in a shrug.

“You will have to ask Bane.”

Tim snorts and rolls his eyes. Psycho gently cuffs the boy on the side of the head.

“Rest.” Psycho stabs a finger at John, the fond smile he had been aiming at Tim fading into a frown. “I will speak with my brother.”

John is dozing when Bane arrives, the lowering sun warm against his back. He blinks blearily as Bane draws the thin sheet down off the bed. John pushes until he's sitting upright, ignoring the discomfort that the change in position brings. He knows that all he needs to do is make it through the meal and then Bane will let him relieve himself.

“Barsad tells me that you are feeling well enough to begin walking on your own.” Bane sets the bowl of soup on the small table and sits beside John, the bed groaning beneath his weight. Steam and a rich smell rise from the soup. It's a good smell, he knows that, but it stirs nothing but a faint curl of nausea in his stomach.

“Barsad?” John takes the bowl into his lap and takes a few small bites, the warmth just the right side of too hot. He enjoys the heat that seeps into the muscles of his legs.

“My second.” Bane takes the bowl from John's hands as he sets the spoon down, unable to stomach the thought of taking even a little more in. 

“Oh.” John bites back the 'Psycho' that wants to follow. He's not sure how Bane would take the insult.

“Show me how far you have come.” Bane gestures to the bathroom door. John slides carefully off of the bed and wavers on his feet, holding onto the side of the bed until he feels steady. He shuffles slowly across the room, a space of maybe six feet. It takes him forever to reach the wall and when he does he is panting a little, leaning his forehead against the cool stone to catch his breath. Bane gives him a few moments to rest before waving for John to come back. The return trip takes longer, John's unused muscles protesting with every small step.

John tries to crawl back onto the bed but Bane takes hold of his arms, guides him to stand between Bane's spread legs. He braces his good hand against Bane's heavily muscled thigh and sways as Bane slides his hands up beneath the soft cotton of John's shirt. Bane curls his hands over the sharp ridges of John's ribs, runs his palms down the soft plane of John's stomach until he can press the heel of one hand into the swollen ache of John's bladder. John gasps but doesn't step away. He rolls his shoulders back and stands as straight as he can, dragging the worn tatters of his dignity around himself.

“Our deal is over.” John's voice comes out more quietly than he intends and he tries to strengthen it, to put some of the steel hard tone he had used with suspects in Gotham back into his voice. “I did my part.”

“And I mine.” Bane sounds amused, the blunt fingers of his hand pressing into John's hip with casual strength. “That is in the past, as you say. But you have given yourself to me, John. Not in part, but the whole of you.” The heel of Bane's hand shifts, the pressure growing sharper, harder as he leans into John's body. John tries to move away now, to ease the pain, but Bane's other hand is clamped hard on John's arm and he can't escape. “This is a part of your life now.” Bane squeezes, pressing his thumb in just above the hard knot of pain in John's stomach and a pained explodes from John.

“Kneel.” Bane releases him and breathing shallowly through the pain, John lowers himself slowly until he can feel the cool stone through the thin fabric of his pants. John looks up at Bane's face, trying to hide the slick fear that is coiling around his spine, sending quivers of nausea through him. Bane runs his fingers over John's cheek, down to his lips as Bane frees his erection with his other hand.

John pretends that he can't feel the heavy weight of the hand Bane wraps around the back of his neck. A weight heavier than Bane's grip settles onto his shoulders, sinks down through his body and seems to pin him to the floor. There is no mistaking what Bane expects as he pulls John forward, bending his neck until John can see each breath ruffle the dark hair surrounding Bane's cock.

Bane says nothing, as immobile as a statue as John stares at a bead of fluid that glistens in the lowering light. It slides over the swollen, red head of Bane's cock, slithers down the underside, highlighting each vein as it does before gravity claims it. John can't stop the rough gulp of air that he drags in as that single, small drop splatters on the floor. 

This will happen, John knows. The tension in Bane's hand on his neck is clear, there is not going to be any backing away, any bargaining even if John had anything to bargain with. John's mouth falls open and he drags in the deepest breaths he can manage. He imagines doing it; taking Bane into his mouth and then biting down, blood and flesh overflowing his mouth and spilling down his chest in a hot wave. If he could be certain that that would be the last thing he ever felt, John knows that he would do it.

The black, open mouth of the well dances in front of his eyes. John can still feel the bite of the gag from that first day in Gotham. He can't take the risk. He can't. 

John closes his eyes and stretches his lips wide around the head of Bane's cock. The taste isn't bad, isn't what he was expecting. There's the heavy saltiness of skin and a faint sweetness that John has noticed on Bane's skin before, when he's bitten down on the nearest bit of flesh to muffle his cries. John struggles to drag in air around Bane and runs through the fragmented memories of the few times he's had a girlfriend willing to do this for him. It's wrong, he thinks, to be using their memories like this but he doesn't know what else to do.

“Now is not the time for cowardice, John.” Bane presses harder on his neck, urging him forward. John wraps his good hand around the base of Bane's cock and stokes up as he curls his tongue around Bane. It's not right, the skin beneath his hand is too dry, he doesn't remember there being so much rough drag when Simone had done it. There should be something to ease the way. He leans back against Bane's grip, tries to speak and let Bane know he just needs a second but Bane only urges him further forward, another inch of his cock piercing John's gaping mouth.

John can't get enough air around the mass of Bane that slides over his tongue with each easy breath that Bane takes. He runs his too dry hand along Bane's length, fingers fumbling and stupid. John's tongue flexes against the weight in his mouth, trying to shift it, to find some way to breathe. Bane moans, his fingers tightening on John, hips rocking back a fraction of an inch. It's just enough to let John draw in a breath. 

Okay. He can do that. He can learn. John repeats the movement, gains another reprieve. He works his tongue over Bane until the salty, clean dark taste of Bane fills him, his hand twisting and tightening carefully around the vulnerable length. Bane's hand flexes around John's neck so hard that John can feel the bruises forming.

Bane growls, the sound echoing and strange through his mask, and thrusts forward as John falters in his tentative rhythm. John braces his hand against Bane's thigh and tries to open his mouth wider, to keep his teeth from scraping along the soft skin of Bane's erection. He groans as Bane begins to move faster, snapping his hips up in sharp arcs that leave John gasping for air as he is filled again and again. 

John's head spins and he claws at the clenching muscles beneath his fingers as he realizes that he's not getting any air at all. There's no pause between the long rolls of Bane's hips, no easing in the iron wrapped around the back of his neck, holding him still for Bane. John whines deep in his throat, the noise muffled and helpless. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, drip uselessly down his cheeks. He tries to pull air in through the blocked passage of his nose. Nothing. Panic sinks sharp claws into his heart.

John chokes, the head of Bane's cock brushing the back of John's mouth and then he's breathing, free and clear but for the lingering rasp in his chest. Bane's short nails break the skin of John's throat as he comes, covering John's throat and chest. He runs broad fingers through the mess he's made of John's skin, collecting some of his own come to rub over John's lips.

“Now.” Bane's boot slides between John's spread legs and presses upward with steady, harsh pressure. John knows what he wants. Flushed and still gasping for air, John pisses himself. The heat washes down his thighs, puddling around his knees in a familiar rush that leaves him only with a deep sense of relief.

The shape of John's new days emerges. Psycho-Barsad comes only one last time, to remove the cast. He is alone and refuses to answer when John asks him about Tim. After that there is only Bane, as it has been since the beginning. Bane reasserts himself as the entirety of John's world. John knows that someone comes in and cleans the room while Bane has him in the bathroom, bathing and fucking him, caring for him in the strange way John has begun to recognize if not understand, but he never sees them. They might as well not exist at all.

He staggers from bed to wall and back again, over and over under Bane's direction. Each day, when Bane is satisfied, he pulls John to his knees and fucks his mouth. John isn't sure if it's meant to be a reward or a punishment for not improving quickly enough. Food sits uneasily in his lifeless stomach, no matter how little he manages to force down.

Bane traces the curves of John's ribs and demands that he eat more. It doesn't matter. When he can manage to take in more than a bite or two it all comes up later, once he's alone. His walks become more shaky, his path wavering and snail slow. Bane says nothing and practically pours the soup down John's throat.

John vomits it all up, the stomach cramps leaving him curled up on his sheets and sweating, pain radiating up and down his body from the void of his stomach. His fever comes back, a vicious burn that eats at his skin from the inside. John sleeps, unable to even rise when Bane comes for him. The room, reality, is nothing but a blur of heat and light that fades in and out.

“Bane does not understand what you are doing, little brother.” Talia's voice is like a knife made of ice. It slides between John's shoulder blades and twists. He can hear, through the slow throb of his pulse and the rough drag of his breathing, her steps snapping against the floor. She is alone and John can't help the slow thought that she is all the more dangerous for it. “He has survived the depths of hell itself, torture and unending pain, all for the sake of a tiny spark of goodness that only he was smart enough to see. But he has never despaired so deeply that he wishes he were dead.” She sits on the side of the bed, runs her fingers along John's arm. “His strength sometimes blinds him to other people's weaknesses.” 

Talia's touch turns harsh, nails digging into the thin skin of John's arm. She shoves at him. The world, already greying and fuzzy at the edges, vanishes for the space of a dozen heart beats. When it returns John is on his back, Talia kneeling over him with her knees pinning his arms to his sides. John does nothing, can't find the strength or the will to even think about fighting in more than the vaguest of ways.

“You know that he will not permit you to die, do you not?” Talia smiles, the way a cat might smile as it contemplates the mouse it has just pinned. “He is giving you a chance to save yourself, to recover from this illness on your own. He doesn't understand that you will not. Do you know what will happen, John, once I have convinced him that you are incapable of taking care of yourself in such a basic way?”

“No.” John would startle at the sound of his own voice, weak and thready, alien on his tongue, but he lacks the strength for even that.

“He will bind you to this bed.” Her hands wrap around his wrists, an unbelievable strength clear in her grip. “And we will make a cut, just a small one. Right here.” Talia presses one fingernail into John's side, below his ribs. She drags it down, denting the flesh and leaving a line of burning cold behind. John flinches from her touch but there's nowhere to escape to. “That's where the tube will go, so that we can keep you alive. Feeding tubes and IVs. A catheter, if you're lucky. Bane would enjoy taking you over and over, covered in your own piss.

“You'll be nothing but a doll for Bane's pleasure. Something for him to spend the heat of his flesh on when the need strikes. Is that what you want, little brother?”

“He won't.” John shakes his head, a tiny, desperate denial. He turns away from the vision her words pain on the inside of his skull.

Talia's smile turns pitying. “He will not let you go. You belong to Bane and he treasures all his possessions. Even the broken ones. You will serve his purpose for you.” 

A chill slides down John's spine, settling in his gut. “I can't-”

“You can.” Talia leans in close, her chest pressing against his as they breathe in time with one another. “I know that you feel lost, John. I've survived hell. I was born in it. I know what it's like to want nothing more than for it all to stop, just _stop_. But it won't John. Not for you, not like this. Bane won't allow it. You will survive because Bane will accept nothing else. As he did for me.” She smiles and runs her fingers through John's hair, tugging gently on the strands.

“I escaped hell because of Bane's love. Because he would accept nothing else but my survival.” John watches her lips as she mouths the word 'escape' again, silently. “Bane taught me how to fly.” Talia sighs, a gentle smile playing over her face. “There is so much that he can give you, little brother. If you're willing to learn from him. You must accept that you are his. Accept that this is your rightful place in the world. Here, with us. With Bane.”

“Trapped in one room for the rest of my life. I can't live like this.” John refuses to meet her eyes, staring at the ceiling above them.

She sits up and gestures around the room. “This need not be your life forever. There is a family waiting for you beyond that door. The League of Shadows would embrace you if only you would ask it to. If you would take up the life that Bane has offered to you.” Talia's smile turns sharp. “You will live through this John. The only question is what the rest of your life will be like? Will you fly free or burn in the depths of hell?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pokes head in*
> 
> Um...I have a really long list of reasons for why it took this long to get the next part out, but they're kind of boring. School, work, Life, that sort of thing. Boring, like I said.
> 
> So...this is what happened. I was abducted by aliens. And then, once I'd escaped on the space ship I stole, I get back home to find that my beta has been eaten by zombies. That's what took so long. I had to use the alien tech on the ship to cure her zombification before she could beta for me. Yeah.
> 
> Assuming any of you are still hanging around, I'm sorry that the aliens and the zombies don't respect writing and that I'm such a pants horror movie heroine that it took me so long to deal with them.
> 
> Thank you for all the wonderful comments! And, as always, this has been betad by the long suffering, now no longer a zombie, forestgreen. All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> NOTE: This chapter contains a, I have been informed, rather gross description of vomiting.

John walks out of his cell. There is no one in any of the cool, echoing stone halls that he slinks through, no one in the courtyard that John eventually stumbles into. He finds a jeep with the keys dangling from the ignition and it starts like he'd been sure that it would. John drives out of the open gates of the fortress without a sound but the steady grumble of the engine.

It is winter in Gotham. John's been gone so long that it's winter again as if he'd never left at all, the snow thick on the ground and people still skittering around, always looking over their shoulders. He stomps harder than he needs to as he walks, just to listen to the crunching squeal of the snow beneath his feet. People glance at him and then look quickly away, the old Gotham adage of 'mind your own fucking business or get cut' running deep.

His apartment building hasn't changed. No one has even bothered to clean up the graffiti from the occupation, the slogans cheering on Bane and insulting the police, the Batman and everyone's mothers. It doesn't matter. John is _home_ and he'll paint over everything later, make it all Bat-black and clean.

Three flights of stairs up because the elevator isn't working, it's never worked since the day John moved in, and John is staring dumbly at his apartment door. He has no keys, of course he has no keys. He doesn't even remember where he got the clothes he's wearing, someone else's sleek suit that makes him feel like a kid playing dress up.

John is torn between knocking and just walking away. He doesn't know what he was thinking, coming here. They've probably rented the apartment out to some other poor sap. He rests his hands against the door for a second, leaning into it and then steps back, turns away.

The lock clicks behind John and he looks back. Gordon is there in the doorway, a tired smile creasing his weathered face. “John. We've been waiting for you, son.” Gordon pulls John into the apartment, wraps him tightly in a warm embrace and just holds him. His mustache tickles along the edge of John's cheek, itchy and unfamiliar and still so welcome that John would cry if he remembered how.

John leans into the embrace, closes his eyes and just breathes. Even the muffled voices of his neighbors arguing next door are comforting.

John opens his eyes and stares at the smooth concrete ceiling of his cell. He's tangled himself in the sheet, the fabric wrapped tightly around his shoulders like the ghost of Gordon's embrace. The voices are real enough. John slowly unwinds himself from the sheet, Barsad and Bane's voices rolling over him. His hands are shaking again-- still. John holds them up to the pale sunlight leaking through the window. He can still feel the nubby, tattered fabric of Gordon's worn sweater beneath his palms. John curls his fingers until his nails dig into his palms, trying to force the feeling away.

Talia's grip has left blue-black bruises behind, smeared marks like paint on the thin canvas of John's skin. He can still feel the sharp scrape of her nails against his side, can almost swear that she's left a mark, a dotted line for Barsad to follow when the time comes.

Barsad's voice rises until it's almost a shout, startlingly harsh over the calm baseline of Bane's lower rumble. John huddles back into the sheets, his heart beating painfully hard against his ribs. He waits for the roar of anger from Bane, for the walls to shake before the wet crunch of Barsad's head smashing open against the stone. There is only silence, and then the quiet sound of the door opening.

“There were many different kinds of men in the Pit.” Bane doesn't bother shutting the door behind himself any longer, what little strength John had retained is long gone. He sets a mug on the small table, steam rising from it in ghostly wisps. It smells different, meatier than the broth John is so used to. “Some of them decided to die but lacked the courage to do it themselves. They believed that the other men were animals, to prey on their weakness and end it for them. They were fools.

“The men took what little of value these fools possessed, but left them untouched. Left them to their penance.” Bane smooths the hair out of John's eyes, his hand a warm roughness that John can't help but lean into. “When I was young I killed some of them. I thought it was a mercy. It wasn't until later that I understood the truth; by killing them before they were ready I was denying them the suffering they truly desired.” The scorn in his voice is a thick weight that settles around John's chest, squeezing tight so that he has to fight to fill his lungs. “After that I made sure that they lived as long as possible, so that they had the chance to regret their mistakes.”

John shudders as Bane lifts him into his lap, the cool of the air biting at John's skin. He leans into Bane's heat and closes his eyes against the vision of a small, lean Bane in the Pit. A terrible angel of twisted mercy. How young had Bane been when he was thrown into the Pit? He'd had no chance, none at all.

“I'm not trying to die.” Not any more. John tucks his hands between his body and Bane's, the last vestiges of his dream finally leaving him.

“Of course not.” Bane's warmth pushes away the chill that has settled into John's bones and he relaxes into the embrace. “I tell you this so that you understand, I know the difference between those who have chosen to die, whose spirits have been broken and those whose bodies have betrayed them.” Bane reaches for the mug, holds it close beneath John's chin so that the steam rises up and surrounds him. Each breath John takes is flavored with whatever is in the container, hot and fragrant. “My body failed me once, during an illness that struck shortly after Talia's mother was cast into the Pit. The other men left me to recover or to die, as was our way.

“Melisande made this for herself, to stave off the sickness. She gave the secret of it to me in exchange for my protection.” There is a fondness in Bane's voice, twisted together with a deep sadness. John remembers the way the story ends, an innocent woman raped and murdered by the men her own father had thrown her to. Bane tilts the hot lip of the mug against John's mouth and John swallows, letting the warm fluid slide thickly over his tongue.

The taste is strange, earthy and overly sweet at the same time. John takes the slowest sips he can to keep up with the flow, fingers knotted in Bane's shirt. The drink coats John's throat on the way down, slips into his stomach and settles uneasily there.

In spite of the roll of John's stomach he drinks everything in the mug. It's little enough but more than John has taken in in over a week. The heat of it spreads through him slowly, meeting the constant warmth of Bane against his side. For the first time in months John is warm all the way through. Bane runs his hands over John, mapping out the changes in his body. They sit there until it's clear that John isn't going to throw up just yet.

“Better.” Pleasure and triumph are clear undertones in Bane's voice. He rests one hand over the hollow curve of John's stomach and it's obvious that he's waiting for John to say something.

“Yes. It was...good.” John licks his lips, swallows down the rising thread of nausea that is creeping up the back of his throat. The sick churn of his stomach continues through being carried to the bathroom but remains only a rumble, only the threat of illness.

John keeps the food down through his quick bath, the warm water washing away the sweat and grime until John starts to feel a little more human. Bane's hands are everywhere, as always, hotter even than the water. John hates how good it all feels. Bane doesn't fuck him, doesn't force himself down John's throat. He jerks himself off, come splashing over John's bowed back to be washed away by the same gentle touch Bane uses for everything here.

Later, after Bane has left, going back out into the real world, the sickness that has been dogging John since the first swallow of the broth rises up strong enough to choke him. John jerks upright, his body screaming at the sudden movement and leans over the side of the bed. It hurts to throw up, acid burning his throat as his mouth is filled with the foul, sickly sweet taste of vomit. He gags and heaves, tears blurring his vision, the acrid stench stinging his nose.

When it's over John is left curled up around himself. He's too wrung out to do anything but lay there. Each beat of John's heart is like a knife in his chest, making breathing a terrible chore. John is no stranger to pain, not now, not since he was very small. He forces his lungs to keep working, to drag in air through the razor sharp burn until the pain starts to fade. It does, eventually, settling down into the eternal chorus of aches and illness that never leaves him.

“Dammit.” John stretches out, sits up slowly. His stomach lurches a little when John sips from the water bottle at his side. The lukewarm water washes some of the foulness from his mouth, eases a little of the sting that still burns in his throat. John is left tired and aching. And afraid. Bane had seemed so certain, so happy when his soup had sat better than the broth. If he- the bruises around John's wrists throb painfully. He can smell Talia's sweet perfume again, trace the sharp drag of her nails over his skin.

Bane can't find out. He can't.

It hurts to move, his joints crackle like snapping twigs as John crawls out of bed to kneel over the drying mess on the carpet. The sun has nearly set but the light that lingers is enough for John to see by. There's little enough evidence, John hasn't had solid food in weeks. He grits his teeth and presses his hands into the slimy pool. It's still warm, thick and slippery to the touch. John spreads it around, makes the mess thinner, less obvious. The stain will still be visible in the morning but John hopes that it will go unnoticed.

His head is pounding by the time he's done, his hands are almost numb as he uses the bottom of the sheets to wipe the worst of the mess off, and the sunlight has vanished entirely. John climbs back into bed, cold and shivering in spite of the warmth of the night air around him. He curls himself into the blankets, buries his head in the softness of the pillow and hopes not to dream of anything at all.

Bane doesn't seem to notice the dark stain on the rug when he comes the next day bearing more of his soup. John counts it as a small blessing. He forces a small smile to his lips when Bane asks him how he's feeling. John lies. Smiles and lies and drinks the soup when Bane presses the rim of the mug to his lips. It's sweet and warm and John finds himself taking the mug in his own hands, slipping it carefully out of Bane's grip in order to cradle the heat of it to his chest. John's nausea refuses to leave him, lingering even as he drinks.

John forces the sickness down, drinks slowly and takes shallow breaths between each sip. Bane takes advantage of the time to pet John, the old ritual coming back so smoothly that it feels natural even to John.

“After her mother was killed, Talia wouldn't speak. I took her to my cell to keep her safe. She would scream and attack if anyone came near.” Bane holds out his arm, drawing John's attention to a long, jagged scar that crosses his bicep. “Even I, who had been her friend since birth. She knew nothing but her fear and anger.” Bane shrugs and John has to stop drinking to hold the mug steady. He doesn't want to hear this story. Doesn't want to feel sorry for Talia. John tightens his grip on the mug. He won't feel sorry for her, or for Bane. They don't deserve it. “I killed the man who led the attack and gave Talia his possessions, meager and unworthy of her though they were. She stabbed me with his knife when I turned my back on her.” There's no denying the pride in Bane's voice when he speaks of Talia. “It was only after I made this for her, the same as her mother had done every day of her life that she came back to herself.

“It will help you.”

There is nothing to say in the face of Bane's rock solid certainty. John nods silently and drinks more of the broth, concentrating only on keeping everything down.

Bane is barely out the door when John throws up. It's worse than the night before, loud and violent in John's ears. He expects the door to slam open with each passing second, for Bane to storm in and catch him in the act. Nothing comes but the harsh, wet rasp of his breathing when John is finished, his tears drying hot against his cheeks.

Discovery doesn't come that night, or the night after that. The stain grows larger and darker and the smell of dried vomit starts to slink through the room when the breeze turns the wrong way. John begins to dread Bane's broth as much as he'd ever dreaded the thin, watery stuff that had been his diet before. The taste that had been so wonderful at first now makes his stomach clench in anticipation of the sickness and pain that will come later. It's a week, maybe, of John choking down the broth and hoping that each night will be different, that he'll win the fight and be able to rest with a full stomach. It never happens. John can feel himself still wasting away. A little more slowly perhaps, but he's not getting better. Panic becomes his constant companion.

Barsad follows Bane in one day, quick and silent as he paces in Bane's shadow. John's hands are shaking almost too hard to hold the mug Bane hands him. He watches Barsad as the man paces around the room, eyes flicking everywhere. John's heart lurches when Barsad's gaze lingers on the rug before slowly rising to meet John's eyes. Barsad paces to the edge of the rug and takes a deep breath, never looking away from John.

“Well?” Bane's fingers run through John's hair in long, soothing strokes. John buries his face behind the mug, hides away from Barsad's knowing gaze.

“I need to examine him brother. _Without_ you hovering over him.”

John chokes back the snort of wild laughter that tries to slip out of him. Bane's hand tangles in his hair, pulling sharply for a second and John settles back against him, biting the inside of his cheek to keep silent. Barsad drums his fingers along the edge of the bed and frowns at both of them. Bane keeps hold of John until he's finished drinking and then rises, taking the mug with him.

“I will return in a few minutes.” Bane's hand lingers at the back of John's neck. “Behave well for my brother, John.” He vanishes into the bathroom, his steps silent even on the hard stone floor.

Barsad says nothing for the first few minutes, just grabs John and turns him this way and that, pinching his skin up into a peak and staring at it as it remains raised. John's head pounds, making the usual nausea worse, and he concentrates on not vomiting and betraying his lie.

“You're still throwing up.” It's not a question. Barsad taps his boot on the rug, making it clear that he's seen what Bane has not.

“No.” John pulls together the thin scraps of his dignity and meets Barsad's eyes. “I'm not. I'm getting better.”

“You're dehydrated. You haven't put on any weight.” Barsad sighs and leans in closer to John. “There is no shame in being ill, little brother. There is shame in lying to him though. When he finds out...” Barsad rolls his shoulders in an expressive shrug. “Let me help you before it is too late.”

The false sincerity in Barsad's voice makes John's skin crawl. John closes his eyes against a wave of dizziness and the skin of his arms itches with the remembered pressure of Barsad's hands just before the man shoved him back into the well. His breath hitches on the next inhale, pain stabbing through him from phantom wound Talia left him with.

“I'm getting better.” John opens his eyes and has to look away from Barsad's face. He stares at the far wall and fights to keep himself from worrying at the sheet beneath his hands.

Barsad frowns and shakes his head, straightening until he stands over John in a pale imitation of Bane's looming presence. “You cannot continue this way for long. It is foolish to think otherwise.”

“Nobody ever accused me of being smart.” John whispers it under his breath, too softly for Barsad to hear even as close as he is. “I'm getting better. I swear.” He raises his voice enough that it strains his throat, reducing him to a harsh rasp at the end.

“On your own head be it.” Barsad is gone before Bane returns for John.

The day after Barsad's visit Bane hands John the mug silently and stalks around the room as John eats rather than sitting with him. John watches Bane move and struggles to keep his growing fear off of his face. Bane's hands are hard against John's skin in a way they haven't been since John left the absolute darkness of his first cell. It's not until Bane is carrying him back from the bathroom, John's still damp skin sticking to the soft cloth of Bane's shirt, that Bane speaks.

“Barsad insists that you are still ill. That you have been hiding it from me.” Bane drops John to the floor without warning. John twists to take the impact as best he can but he's too slow, too weak to do it well and he slams into the concrete on his hands and knees with enough force to deaden his arms and legs. “Have you been lying to me, John?”

John flinches, swallowing down the sour bile filling his mouth, and hopes that Bane doesn't notice. “I'm not.”

“Then why would my brother tell me that you are?” Bane kneels down beside John and tangles his fingers through John's hair, pulling up until John is staring into Bane's face, the muscles in his neck cramping from the angle. “Do you say that Barsad is _lying_ to me?”

“No. I don't-” John shakes his head a little, Bane's unmoving grip tearing his hair out in a line of prickling fire. “He just wants to help. He doesn't understand. I'm just...just weak.” Feeling starts to return to John's hands, lines of pain that radiate all the way up to his shoulders.

Bane twists his grip in John's hair, forcing his head around to where the bed sits in the middle of the room. Where it used to sit rather. The bed and rug are gone, as is the small table that had served as a nightstand. All that is left in the room is a thin sheet and a mattress lying on the floor. “The rug was becoming soiled. I had it removed.”

“Oh.” Panic chews at the base of John's spine.

The door to the hall opens and Tim steps into the room. He glances over to John, his eyes going up to Bane kneeling over John's prone form. Tim settles a small, rolled bundle to the floor at his feet and closes the door, leaning against it.

“The boy will be staying with you.” Bane releases John's head and John sinks forward, limbs shaking, until his forehead is pressing against the cool concrete.

John stays there, breathing heavily, eyes closed against the sick rush of pain and fear. He listens to Bane cross the room, boots thudding against the bare concrete, echoing through off the walls and inside of John's skull like a death march. Bane says something to Tim at the door, not in the usual soft, sibilant language that everyone seems to speak but something harsher, deeper. Tim responds in the same tongue, voice almost comically high compared to Bane's bass growl, and then Bane is gone.

When John's head and stomach have settled enough for him to move he crawls to the mattress. Tim has settled to the floor beside the door, his legs folded beneath him in a way that makes John wince just looking at him. Tim is watching John from beneath the shaggy fringe of his hair, a kind of curious wariness evident in his eyes. John thinks about trying to make conversation for a second, trying to be something like friendly toward the kid but he's too tired. Too tired and too sick. The broth is sitting badly in his gut, the usual illness made worse by his terror at what Bane will do when he finds out that John's been lying to him. That his miracle food isn't doing jack shit.

John turns his back on Tim and curls up small on the mattress, pulling the sheet up to his chin. He closes his eyes and wills himself to go to sleep, hoping that this will be the night his body stops trying to kill him. John lays there for what feels like an hour, refusing to move, refusing to try and find a more comfortable position. It's only when John's stomach burbles and rolls in a particularly vicious manner that John admits defeat.

John sits up, tucking the sheet around himself to keep off the worst of the evening chill. Tim is watching John from his spot by the door, still as death but for the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. There's something unsettling about the silence that fills the room between John and Tim. John's grown used to silence, to the feel of the world when it's just John and the echoing emptiness of his solitary existence or when Bane is sitting with him, silent but still filling the room with his presence, making the universe beat in time with his will. Tim's silence is unnerving in a way John can't put his finger on. John's too cold and too distracted by the churning in his stomach to put much thought into why the boy raises the hair on the back of his neck. He starts to talk to distract himself from the churning in his gut.

"Hey, Tim? It is Tim, right? So...I don't suppose you speak English?"

Tim frowns at John and shrugs.

"I'm just going to take that as a 'no'." John has to stop for a second and just breathe through his nose until the wave of dizziness passes. He starts talking again, keeping his voice as low and even as he can in the hopes that maybe Tim will fall asleep. John tells Tim some of the same stories he told Bane, fantastical tales that have nothing to do with the dull reality of his life. Eventually those stories run out and John, desperate to fill the hungry silence, begins to speak about his time at St. Swithin's. He talks about life in Gotham. About Gotham itself. John pours pieces of his life out in a steady stream of babble that leaves him drained and nodding off. He jerks awake half-way to the mattress, Tim's small hands guiding him down so that John doesn't brain himself on the cement. John starts to tell Tim to go to sleep, memories from years of weekend camping trips with the older boys floating lazily through his mind, but before he can get the first word out he's asleep again.

John wakes already on his hands and knees, vomit splashing down to cover his hands and the concrete floor beneath him. He's gagging and coughing, making raw, torn noises as the smell and sound of his own illness makes his stomach twist and wring itself bloody. John is shaking by the time he's done and it takes all the strength he has left to push away from the mess on the floor before he collapses face down into it. As the gnawing pain settles down into a dull roar that suffuses John's entire body he starts to scrape at the mess. He pushes the slippery clumps up under the little mattress. It won't take long for someone to notice, but it might be enough time; if he can force himself to be stronger, to start making a real recovery. John is so focused on cleaning up the mess, on hiding, that the soft thump of feet hitting his mattress makes him jump and fall back onto the floor.

Tim is crouching in the middle of the mattress, eyes dark behind the veil of his hair. John rolls and forces himself to move until he's sitting up, his hands sticky with his own waste. He meets Tim's shadowed gaze and refuses to look away in spite of the shame and fear that are wound tightly around his chest.

"He's going to cut me open. You're going to tell Bane about this because hell, that's what you're here for right? And he's going to cut me open and tie me down and all I'll be is a warm body for him to fuck." John's voice breaks and he's shaking, fear and anger swirling together until he feels sick again. He looks down at his stained hands. "And I can't- you should have heard Bane when- like he was giving me manna from heaven. I can't tell him it's not working. I can't- he'll be angry. And then-" John shakes his head, foolish dreams vanishing beneath the crush of reality, and starts wiping at the drying mess on the floor again. He scrapes at the edge of the puddle, ignoring the sting as the concrete tears at the skin of his hands. “I'll never get out of here.”

John doesn't hear Tim move, the boy is just suddenly kneeling on the floor beside him with no warning at all, small hands wrapping around John's bone thin wrists and pulling him away from the smeared mess. Tim is stronger than John would have thought possible and he easily forces John back onto the mattress, hardly seeming to notice when John growls and tries to jerk his hands out of Tim's grip.

Tim pushes John until he's lying down, pins him back with a glare that would have made any number of nuns proud when John tries to get back up. John's blood runs cold as Tim pads over to the door, the part of his mind not screaming in frustration wondering if he can get rid of all the evidence before Tim brings Bane back. But all Tim does is scoop up his pack and wander back over to the bed. He hums quietly to himself as he kneels beside John's mess and pulls the pack apart, steals John's water bottle and wets one small cloth, beginning to clean up the dried vomit.

“What're you-” John sits up, reaches for the rag Tim is scrubbing over the floor.

Tim hisses at him, grabs John's hand and twists. Pain blooms briefly in John's fingers before they go numb. Tim drops John's useless hand back onto the mattress and goes back to his cleaning. By the time feeling returns to John's hand, aside from the tingling numbness at the very tips of his fingers, Tim has cleaned up the floor, what little John had managed to get under the mattress, and washed John's hands of the evidence as well. When he finishes Tim bundles the dirtied cloths back into the center of the pack, hiding them, and stands, stretching his arms up until John hears Tim's spine crackling like a line of fireworks.

John starts to speak again, confusion and something that might be relief if it wasn't so sharp edged and fleeting whipping through him, but Tim fixes John with that same glare and pointedly yawns. Tim crosses back to the door and sits against the wall beside it, his small pack between his feet, and leans his head back, eyes closed firmly.

John spends a sleepless night watching Tim pretend to be asleep, exhaustion only claiming him as the sky begins to lighten outside John's narrow windows.

Tim is gone when John wakes. There's a new bottle of water sitting half way between John's mattress and the door to the hall. John blinks at it for a few seconds before he rolls carefully onto the floor and lifts the edge of the mattress, checking the underside. There's a small stain but it's faded, unremarkable unless someone is looking for it. The floor is as clean as it ever gets, the concrete discolored and pitted throughout the room in patterns that John does his best not to think too deeply about. John slips back onto the mattress, his muscles burning from even that small effort, and buries his rasping laughter in his hands.

There's no evidence.

Confusion sours his stomach even as a sense of relief settles along his bones. Even if Tim shows the stained cloths to Barsad, or to Bane, there's nothing in John's room to prove that it came from him. He might be able to bluff his way out of this, avoid the knife.

John knows it's not much. But it's a chance. A small one, but it's more hope than he's had in a long time.  
It doesn't take long for the dryness of John's throat to start to truly hurt, the foul taste that still fills his mouth making every breath he takes a fight to keep from dry heaving. John looks at the water bottle. It's sweating, even in the perpetual shade of John's room, fat droplets of water rolling slowly down the sides to stain the concrete beneath a dusty brown.

Nine, maybe ten steps. That's all it would take to reach the water, to be able to soothe a little of his discomfort. John slides to the edge of the mattress and starts to stand, trembling hands pressing hard against the narrow span of his thighs to try and steady himself. The room spins around John as he rises and he finds himself back on the mattress, half-crumpled into a heap.

John glares at the water bottle and turns away from it to stare at the ceiling. He tells himself to just wait. Tim will be back, or Bane, and he can have the water then. It's not the first time he's been thirsty. It's not that bad.

The day moves slowly, John's thirst growing worse with each passing minute. He finds himself looking again and again at the water. It's just out of reach, just far enough that John has no easy way to get it. Telling himself that he doesn't want it stops working after the first hour.

John needs the water and the fact that he can't have it starts to gnaw at John almost as painfully as the hollow chasm of his stomach. Water is the only thing he hasn't been denied here, the only thing that he's been able to keep down. It's the one thing that's been keeping him going and now they're taunting him with it, using his weakness as a part of the torture.

“Well fuck you all.” John flips the door off, the bluster in his voice thin and desperate even to his own ears. He rolls to his knees, head pounding, and starts to crawl to the water. It's a long trip this way, John has to stop every so often to rest.

By the time he reaches the water bottle John is exhausted. He fumbles the cap off and downs half the bottle in one go. It's cool and it soothes the dry rasp of John's throat, washes away some of the lingering taste in his mouth. There's a faint taste to it, not medicinal, not something John can remember ever tasting before. It leaves a lingering hint of itself on the back of John's tongue. He gives a fleeting thought to poison, but shrugs it off. Bane doesn't want him dead.

Everything would be so much easier if he did.

John drags the bottle back to his bed and collapses against the thin padding, his muscles aching. He drifts between sleep and waking, drinking the rest of the water slowly and reciting the fragments of his old life to keep them from fading entirely.

Bane seems pleased when he comes that evening. John is torn between wanting to find out what Tim might have said and not wanting to draw attention to the fact that there was something that should have been said at all. He stays quiet and soaks in the warmth of Bane's presence; the strange, undeniable ease that being clean and _cared for_ sends through his aching body.

“You continue to harm yourself, John.” Bane's touch is gentle as he dries John, his fingers pressing briefly into the deepest scrapes on John's hands before moving on, helping John get dressed.

“I had a nightmare.” John tugs the hem of his shirt down low, stretching the fabric. “And I'm on the _floor_ so I got scraped up.”

Bane laughs.

“Then it is a good thing that I had your bed removed, is it not? You could have fallen and done true damage.” Bane steps close to John, wraps his arms around John and pulls him in close to Bane's body. Bane leans in, presses the metal of his mask into the crook of John's neck so that the cool drafts of his breath as they rasp through the grating of the mask raise goosebumps all along John's neck. “Perhaps you would prefer to be strapped into your bed every evening? For your own safety.”

“No.” John tries to pull away, with his heart suddenly in his throat and his stomach clenching violently, but Bane just tightens his grip and laughs.

Tim is crouched by the far door again when Bane carries John back to his mattress. The boy's eyes are closed and he is humming a quiet, and off key song to himself.

“I don't think I need the watch dog.” John swallows the shreds of his pride and reaches for Bane's wrist as the man begins to stand. “I sleep better on my own.”

“The boy stays.” Bane avoids John's grasp and strides toward the door, barely acknowledging Tim at all. “You might have another nightmare.”

John shifts on the mattress, pulling the sheet out from under himself so that he can slide his feet under it. Tim opens his eyes at the sounds and watches John for a few seconds before pulling a small book and a tiny reading light from his pack. It looks to John as if Tim's reading the book backwards, pages flipping softly under slender fingers. John can just make out the movement of Tim's lips in the dying light, silently forming whatever words he's seeing on the page.

“I don't know why you didn't tell them. About last night. But-” John raises his voice until it sounds too loud in his own ears, an invasion of the quiet that has been his near constant companion. It has to be said though, even if Tim can't understand him. John has to get it out there in the hopes that maybe Tim will catch the gist of it anyway. “Thank you.”

Tim lifts his eyes from his book to shoot John a puzzled look, shakes his head and returns to his reading. The evening settles in around them, shadows dancing across the walls with every turn of another page.

John tries to sleep, curling up beneath the thin sheet. He swallows down the ugly fear that the churning of his stomach brings and fights to stay quiet and calm. John lasts for only a couple of hours, maybe a little bit longer than the night before. The sickness comes roiling up through John's chest, burning and cutting at his lungs and throat.

It's worse than before, worse than any sickness John can remember and the pain rips a low, angry moan from him. He slides to the edge of the bed, the sharp shards of agony keeping him from getting to his hands and knees. John's pants, gagging, and waits for the sickly sweet acid to burn free of his body and bring a little relief in its wake.

The almost euphoric moment never comes. The vomit feels like it's lodged at the base of his throat, a blockage that hurts with every breath that he forces through it. John chokes and chokes until the muscles in his neck and back start to lock up, drool trickling free of the corners of his mouth. John wants to scream and damn the consequences but he can't even do that through the agony that wracks his body.

“Shhh...” Small hands come to rest on John's shoulders, pulling him back onto the bed, turning him onto his side.

John slaps weakly at Tim's grip on his arms and tries to roll to the other side of the mattress. He knows he'll feel better if he can just throw up and get the noxious waste that feels like it's killing him out of his body. Tim snarls something rough and slips beneath the tangled sheet with John, wrapping his skinny arms around John and pressing in close, the skin of his chest hot against John's back through the thin shirts they both wear.

After long, long hours the pain starts to recede, leaving John quivering and soaked in sweat. Sleep, when it comes, is full of sharp toothed monsters and cold voids that swallow John's screams as they pass over his lips.

Tim is gone when John wakes, a fresh water bottle even further from the bed than the day before. His chest still aches from the cramps, making each breath an exercise in endurance. There's no mess though, no faint scent of vomit and pain to slide through John's body in echoes of remembered shame.  
John stretches, testing his limbs carefully, and puzzles over the not quite comfortable feeling of having a full stomach after so long. He follows the slow path of a beam of sunlight over the ceiling until he feels strong enough to crawl for the water.

It takes longer than it had the day before, giving John time to think. In spite of the pain, whatever has happened is letting John keep the food down. If John can keep this up, if he can keep food down he might have a chance.

A chance at survival.

A chance to escape.


	6. Chapter 6

It's easy for John's days to fall into endless patterns.

There is Bane, and food that John needs and dreads. In the night, when it's cold and his body tries to rid itself of the food, there is Tim's warm body and quiet voice whispering a meaningless stream of poetry into John's ear. The pain doesn't stop, doesn't lessen, but John grows used to it. Welcomes it. Whatever it is, whatever has been triggered or changed inside of him, it's keeping him alive.

The mornings bring relief that he's made it through another night. John crawls to the water over and over again until the day that he stands, his steps slow and uncertain but _steps_. For the first time since Talia had handed him his own obituary, John nurses the tiny spark of hope that he will make it out of this hell. Rather than bring the water with him back to the bed, John begins to leave it where Tim places it. He makes more and more trips to the water each day, his body growing stronger an inch at a time.

Tim starts to leave the water further and further away, moving it to different spots every morning. John curses him to his face and Tim laughs, getting the idea when John flips him off. Tim gets creative after that, balancing the water on the narrow sill on top of the doorway into the bathroom or back in one of the windows so that John's fingers can barely reach it when John finally figures it out. It's not until Tim hides the bottle in John's sheet, somehow managing to slip it in there with John still in the bed and disguise it in a twist of fabric so that it takes John half an hour of searching the nearly empty room, that John realizes what Tim is doing. He's forcing John to move, to fight back against the atrophy that has begun to set into John's body.

John heals slowly, the hollow ache of his body fading to only a few painful sparks. He puts on weight, enough that he no longer feels insubstantial, and John begins to regain a little strength. John works for it, turns the obnoxious game that Tim had begun into a deliberate effort. He makes staggering, trembling circuits around his cell, hands pressed to the wall at first to steady himself. Improvement, when it comes, comes in hard fought inches of progress. Ten steps without bracing himself against the wall, then fifteen, then thirty.

Barsad, after an exam that goes on forever and an angry sounding conversation with Tim, declares John to be no longer actively dying. From that moment on, when Bane rouses himself from the corner Barsad had banished him to, a tension starts building in the air that sets John's teeth on edge. He spends the rest of the day pacing his cell, unable to sit or lay down for more than a few seconds at a time before he's driven to start moving again by the nervous energy buzzing beneath his skin.

When Bane comes that afternoon John knows he's out of time. Bane's gaze is sharper, his touches heavier. John almost chokes on the thick broth when Bane slips his hand beneath the loose elastic of John's pants. The finger Bane pushes into John is huge and dry. John tries to move away from the pain but Bane's arm is wrapped tightly around his chest and John is left gripping the mug in his hands so hard that it hurts, the still warm remnants of the soup splashing up onto his fingers. After a moment that lasts an eternity Bane withdraws his hand with a slow rumble of happiness. He cups John's ass and presses his mask to the back of John's neck, breathing in deeply. John couldn't eat any more if he wanted to, his stomach clenched up into a tight knot but he still clings to the mug when Bane takes it from him.

Bane laughs, sending a shiver through John's body, and sets the mug out of John's reach on the floor. "It's been a long time." Bane slides John off of his lap onto the mattress and John pushes himself to sit on the far side of the mattress. It's not an escape, there's nowhere to escape to. Bane wraps one hand around John's ankle and tugs, pulling him down onto his back. John finds himself lifting his hips when Bane yanks at his pants, letting them slip down over his hips, drag across his thighs before Bane throws them into a corner. Bane moves to kneel between John's legs, spreading them further apart until the stretch makes John's muscles throb with a low ache. There's lube, produced from one of the pockets in Bane's pants, but it's not much, not enough. John closes his eyes and digs his teeth into his bottom lip as the sloppy sounds of Bane slicking himself up fill the room. The rough fabric of Bane's pants scrapes against John's skin, a buckle digs into John's flesh hard enough to break the skin as Bane thrusts two fingers into John, the head of his cock pressing against John's thigh in an insistent reminder of what's coming.

Bane pulls his fingers from John's body with an impatient growl that runs along John's skin like glass. He presses into John slowly, almost carefully, the broad head of his cock stretching John open with a sharp pulse of pain. 

John's eyes fly open as he chokes on his next breath, until all that comes out is a low whine of pain. He grabs at the thick fabric of Bane's shirt, shoving at the mountain of muscle crushing him. He digs his heels into the mattress beneath him and tries to slip away from Bane even as a part of John knows that he's just making it worse. John knows better than to fight, he does, but he can't seem to stop himself. One of his knees catches Bane in the side, almost by accident. Bane grunts and grabs John by the throat with his other hand, squeezing hard enough that John's head spins, liquid black shot through with stars swimming through his vision.

"Wait- wait-" John thrashes weakly beneath Bane, desperate.

"You," Bane slides a little into John, spreading him wider, and John's pulse thunders in his ears, "are being difficult. I thought better of you than this."

John's lips are numb, his tongue thick in his mouth. All he can see is the faded green of Bane's shirt, swimming in and out of focus. Bane presses deeper into John, until John can feel the tearing burn of being stretched too wide, and John's scream dies in his throat. "Bane... _please_..."

The grip on his throat eases and John drags in a full breath, his lungs burning with relief. Bane shifts above him, pulling out of John, and sits back until he can look down into John's eyes. Waiting.

"What?" Bane's voice is a rough growl.

"You-" John's thoughts trip over the realization that Bane has stopped, actually stopped, confusion and surprise making him slow to respond. "I can't...take you. Like this. I'm not well enough."

Bane's eyes narrow and he thrusts one finger back inside of John, pinning John's hips down with his free hand when John's jerks away in response. "You feel well enough."

"I'm not." John hates the way his voice shakes but he forces himself to keep going. "I know you've been...you've been patient. And I just-" John reaches for Bane's hand, runs the tips of his fingers along a broad band of scar tissue that crosses Bane's knuckles. "I can..." John swallows down the bitter taste of his shame. "I can suck you off."

Bane hums thoughtfully and digs his fingers into John's hip. “Very well." His bruising grip relaxes into a caress. "For tonight." Bane settles back onto the mattress, and waves John on with an impatient flick of his wrist.

John moves before he has time to think about what he's doing, twisting around until he's on his knees between Bane's sprawled legs. He hesitates once he's in position, staring down at Bane's lube slick cock. He starts to sit up and Bane's hand clamps down on the back of his neck.

"Have you changed your mind?" Bane shakes John a little bit, a warning growl in his voice.

"No, just let me..." John pushes back, carefully, against Bane's grip and the man relents, releases John and gives him enough space to sit up and pull his nearly threadbare shirt off over his head. John grabs the nearly empty water bottle from beside his mattress and pours the water onto the thin cloth in his hand.

Bane's breath stutters out in a surprised hiss as John wraps his covered hand around the thick length of him and strokes carefully upward, cleaning Bane as quickly as he can.

When it's done John drops the shirt beside the mattress and moves until he's almost laying on his stomach, hands propping himself up against Bane's massive thighs and then the angle is strange. John can't take Bane as deeply as he knows Bane likes him to, can barely get more than the heavy head of Bane's erection into his mouth. John pulls off and Bane's hand lands heavily on John's shoulder with just the barest hint of pressure. John laps at the head of Bane's cock as he wraps his hand around Bane and starts to tighten his grip as he strokes upward. He can feel Bane's pulse beneath his palm, leaping and surging as John works him harder and faster, leaning down to take Bane in as deeply as he can. Bane murmurs something and settles his hand around the back of John's head, fingers tight in John's short hair. John uses all the tricks he's learned under Bane's harsh tutelage, flutters his tongue along the underside of the head of Bane's cock, twisting his fingers as he does to elicit low groans and softly spoken words that mean nothing to John but evidence of his success.

Bane's breathing is rapid, harsh, but not out of control. John gauges his progress by the rasp of Bane's breath far above his head and the tightness of Bane's grip on the back of his skull. If Bane was any other man this would be over quickly. But he's not and John works until his jaw is sore, drool and precome dribbling down his chin. Finally there's a quiet trembling in Bane's hand, his fingers flexing and pulling strands of John's hair free in a cool prickle of pain. John swallows and drags in a deep breath in the seconds before Bane's other hand clamps down on his upper arm. The flood of hot come that fills John's mouth is expected but he still chokes on it, leaving him dizzy in the end.

John pulls away as soon as Bane allows him to, gasping for air even as he swipes at the sticky mess Bane has made of his chin and throat. He licks his fingers clean without a word from Bane, who watches John through eyes half-closed in pleasure.

"Very good, John." Bane gets to his feet, each movement slow and deliberate, and sets himself to rights before kneeling down to run his fingers along John's bottom lip.

John opens his mouth and lets Bane explore, the salty tang of Bane's skin filling his senses. He tells himself that the small flicker of warmth he feels as Bane strokes his spit slick fingers down John's throat, low mutters of praise filling John's ears, is just relief that it's over.

The next day Bane takes John's mouth without hesitation, and the next and the next until John has bought himself a week and then two. Bane urges John on with soft words and hard hands, encouraging John to take him deeper and deeper each time. Bane drives so deep inside of John that John's sure he'll never lose the taste of Bane's cock on his tongue or the feeling of the head stretching John's throat.

John knows this can't last, that Bane won't be content with John's mouth and hands for long. Bane hands are constantly seeking John's ass in the bath, or when he's sprawled out limply on the mattress, fingers stretching and testing John, playing with him. The pain, sharp and tearing at first, dies down to an aching burn that leaves John dreading what comes next. Bane doesn't bother with lube, not when he's just playing with John, twisting his fingers inside of him. 

It makes the pain worse, leaving John with a constant dull ache at the base of his spin, but John's grateful all the same. Sometimes, when Bane has been working John for what feels like hours, fingers deep inside of John's exhausted body, there's a tiny shiver of sensation. A twinge of something that might be pleasure if it wasn't drowned by the pain from Bane's rough handling.

"Barsad says that you're still not eating enough." Bane has John bent over the side of the tub, three fingers buried deep inside of him, stretching him almost painfully wide.

"I-" John chokes on a moan as Bane twists his fingers and withdraws only to push back inside in a sharp thrust. A spark of almost-pleasure, surprising and terrifying by turns, makes John jerk away from Bane's touch. "I'm trying. Maybe if I-"

Bane snaps something at him in the fluid language of the League and slaps his ass with bruising force, killing the unwelcome feeling in John's stomach. "Don't pull away from me."

"No. No. I won't." John swallows and lets his head hang low for a second. The water is hotter than normal, filling the room with steam and making it hard for John to think. He doesn't know how Bane can stand it. John's head swims with each thrust of Bane's fingers and he has to grip the edge of the tub just to keep from sliding head first into the water. "People need fresh air and the sun, _real_ sunlight, to be healthy."

"I grew strong in the darkness of the Pit." Bane runs his fingers over the throbbing curve of John's ass, across the mark that John can feel forming on his skin from where Bane slapped him.

"But you still-" John gasps as Bane presses the cool metal of his mask to the back of John's thigh. "-had the sun and air from the entrance to the Pit." John waves one hand vaguely through the air. "People aren't supposed to live like this, in cages. It makes them sick." He takes a deep breath and digs his nails into the palms of his hands. “Ask Barsad. He'll tell you.”

John reminds himself that it will be a small price to pay to get outside of his room.

Bane starts to take John to a balcony not far from John's room. It's beautiful. The balcony itself is plain, wood and fading paint that holds only a hint of the original color, but it's bright and warm and John feels like he can take deep breaths for the first time since the occupation of Gotham started. The heat from the afternoon sun radiates from the wood and soaks into John's bones, easing aches that he's almost stopped noticing. Most days it's just John and Bane on the balcony, with food and soft cushions that disguise the roughness of the wood beneath John's knees when he repays Bane for his patience. There's the wind and birdsong and the far distant sounds of larger animals, cattle maybe, though John's always been a city boy so for all he knows they could be the sounds of camels or sheep or goats.

Some days messengers come, quick and silent until they're standing in the door to the balcony, clearing their throats politely. John learns to stop blushing every time one of them appears, though he doesn't stop jumping in surprise. Bane leaves with them from time to time, a silent guard always stepping onto the balcony to watch John in his absence.

John only looks over the edge of the balcony once. There's nothing below but a rocky, steep drop that ends in a dusty field. It frightens John. He's never been afraid of heights, not living in Gotham. Not after St. Swithin's where the only safe place to play was on the roof of the building back before they'd had the money to put up a fence. He and the other boys had played along the edge of the roof with the kind of recklessness only children possessed, daring one another to greater and greater feats of idiocy. John had liked to pretend that he was in the circus, part of a high wire act that never failed to thrill.

It's not the height that scares John, it's the way that it calls to part of him. The part that tells John how easy it would be to just lean over a little more and let go. John sticks to the cushions after that, contenting himself with the rough squares of blue sky he can see from there.

Sometimes there are voices from below the balcony, men and women speaking in a multitude of languages, none of which John understands. The sounds of children playing echo up to John some days, giggling and happy and so out of place that every shout or laugh sets John's teeth on edge.

"What's going on down there?" John's leaning up against one wall of the balcony, slowly working his way through the bowl of oatmeal-like food Bane's brought for him. The air is filled with shouts and calls that need no translation to be understood. There's some sort of game going on, boisterous and cut throat as only children can be.

Bane stands with a soft grunt, the sun highlighting the broad line of scarring that runs down his back as he turns to look out over the railing. "They're playing football." He glances back at John. "Come here."

“S'fine. I just-”

“John.” Bane holds out his hand and John sets his bowl aside.

John moves reluctantly to Bane's side, digging his fingers into the railing as he looks down. He closes his eyes as a wave of disgust passes through him, drowning the voice that tells him how fast it would be over if he jumped, how he could finally rest. Bane wraps an arm around him, pulls John in tight against him.

“I won't let you fall.” Bane's arm is a warm anchor around John's waist and he slowly opens his eyes.

He's greeted with a horde of small children, little specks of color against the distant, sandy ground. They giggle and shout happily as they chase a soccer ball across the field, only loosely playing anything resembling an actual game. "That's soccer." It's the only thing John can think to say, fear and the strange attraction fighting inside of him. He wants to move away, to go back to the cushions and his food and the inevitable press of Bane's hands on his shoulders. He also wants to lean over farther, to feel the clutch of gravity.

Bane grunts something that John suspects is _Americans_ in a disparaging tone and returns his attention to the children below. John watches for a few minutes as he tries to think, noting the older girl off to one side, blonde hair shining in the sun as she loosely referees the game. She shouts, her tone good-natured, and kicks the ball back onto the field when it comes toward her, her bright purple sneakers a splash of color even at this distance. John lets his gaze drift over to the harbor, another world that he can see but not touch.

The children play in the field beneath the balcony the next day, and the next and the next. They're in the field, screaming joyfully, when Bane's patience runs out.

Bane brings orange slices, bright and cool as they slide over John's tongue, bursting with flavor when he bites down. It's the best thing he's tasted in a long time and John lingers over the bowl, trying to draw it out as long as he can. Bane sits back and watches John eat, his hands working smoothly at the strips of leather he brings out from one of his pockets. It's hypnotic, the quick, easy movement of Bane's hands, and John finds himself watching Bane work as he licks his fingers clean.

"There is little to do, in the Pit. Once survival is taken care of, once you are on top. They sent us only what was needed to live, nothing more. No...entertainment." Bane waves the thin, braided leather through the air. "Some men slept for days on end. They eventually never woke. Others fought, or fucked. Or both." He shrugs. "The man who cared for me after I was condemned, he made ropes." He lifts the braid again. “The other men would trade for them.”

"Oh." John shifts on the cushions. He can hear the sounds below dying down, the children groaning and complaining as their minder rounds them up to go back inside. “How old were you? When-” John breaks off, unsure of why he's even asking. He doesn't care.

“Young.” Bane moves to kneel on the cushions beside John, the thin leather braid still clenched in his fingers. “Young and very small.” He takes the bowl from John's hands and sets it behind himself near the door. “Ruslan was old when he took me into his care. His fingers were no longer agile enough to do the fine work.” Bane runs his thumb over the twist of the braid, a far away look in his eyes. "There were worse trades to learn in the Pit."

Bane is silent for a long moment, clearly elsewhere, and then he seems to shake himself free of whatever memory had held him. He leans into John, pressing him back until he's laid out beneath Bane on the cushions. John gets his hands between their bodies, pushing against Bane's chest in an effort to find some space. Bane snatches John's hands in one wrist and his arms up above his head, forcing John's back into an arch that presses their chests together with every breath.

“Wait-”

“You're healed. I've waited long enough.” Bane's fingers tighten around John's wrists, the leather braid digging into John's flesh. "This will hurt less if you stop fighting me."

John knows Bane's right. It doesn't mean anything though when Bane's thick fingers catch in the waist band of John's pants and pull, the fabric catching between John's hips and the cushions as he pushes down into them, fighting to keep the thin barrier between himself and Bane. Bane snorts and pulls harder, until the fabric tears and gives way. He treats John's shirt the same way so that all that is left of John's clothes is a pile of scraps that shift in the breeze.

"Do you know what the definition of madness is, John?" Bane flips John over almost before John realizes what's happening. He twists John's arms up behind his back and John cries out as the tough leather is wrapped tightly around his wrists. Bane isn't even breathing hard, the steady rasp of his breath a quiet note beneath the pounding of John's heart and the grunts and curses that slither out through John's clenched teeth.

John closes his eyes against the feeling of Bane's hands on his thighs, forcing his legs farther apart. He's on his knees, forehead pressing against the cushions, and Bane is talking but John can't hear him through the rushing in his ears. John jerks at the strap around his wrists, pain shooting up his arms. Bane presses two fingers into John, rough and quick as ever and John bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood. John can feel the phantom lines of tile cutting into his legs, each breath seems to be tainted with the taste of cold and mildew. He's back in Gotham, back in that shower and John can trace the path of the pain that's coming for him.

"Wait!" John's voice is a dry rasp, his mouth filled with the tang of copper.

"No. No more excuses." Bane's fingers withdraw and John can't breathe through the fear gripping his lungs.

"No, no, just-" John fights to catch his breath, to think. It's too much. Bane is going to tear him apart like he had the first time and John can't go through that again. Whatever pieces of himself are left will shatter, John knows it. "Untie me. I won't fight any more. I won't. Just untie me and I can- I can be good. I won't fight you."

There's a moment that seems to stretch on forever, with John pinned to the floor by Bane's weight against his back, the slick head of Bane's cock resting against John's thigh, slipping with every twitch of John's body. Then Bane's fingers are at John's wrists, tracing over the swollen flesh where the leather is cutting into him. "We will see." He pulls and the leather relaxes around John's wrists.

John forces himself not to move away from Bane. He gets his arms under himself, tucking them down near his chest as he tries to rub some feeling back into his hands. "May I turn around?"

Bane shifts his weight, giving John a little room to move.

John rolls onto his back and settles into the cushions. "Like this. It's better like this." His heart is still pounding painfully fast in John's chest but he can breathe again. He can survive this.

"As you wish." Bane rolls his shoulders in a shrug and then he's on top of John again, hands hard on John's thighs, leaving behind what John knows will be deep bruises. There's a second of warning, the pressure of Bane driving into him and then the pain comes, a thundering ache that fills John until he's choking on it.

John bites down on his wrist, muffling his scream until it's nothing more than a desperate groan. Bane watches John's face as he fucks him, until John has to turn away, unable to stand it any longer. Bane's hands wander, following the map of John's body that he knows so well. He curls one hand around John's neck, thumb pressing gently against the hollow of John's throat. The heat of Bane's skin against John's is suffocating and John finds himself clutching at Bane's shoulders, fingers slipping and catching in the fabric of Bane's shirt. He's not sure when it happens, maybe after the thrust that knocks John's head into the slats of the balcony railing, but John wraps his legs around Bane's hips in a vain effort to feel some sort of control.

Bane comes with a rumbling groan that echoes all through John's body. John shudders as Bane fills him, squirming at the faint, fading warmth of Bane's come inside of him. Bane slowly, slowly begins to go soft inside of John's body and John unwinds his cramping limbs from Bane, letting himself flop loose as the familiar pains settle into his body, waiting for the pain that will come when Bane pulls out. Bane slides his thumb up the shaft of John's throat until he's gripping John's jaw, forcing John to look up into Bane's fathomless eyes.

"I have missed this." Bane's voice is soft, a mockery of affection in his touch as he runs his fingers along John's jaw, over his lips.

John feels Bane twitch inside of him, the only warning he gets, and then there's the too hot, too heavy flood of Bane's piss inside of his body. Shock batters John, leaves him staring blankly up at the thin patch of blue sky he can see between the rail and the overhanging roof of the balcony. Bane has everything now, there's no part of John that Bane hasn't claimed, doesn't own.

Bane's scent, his mark, fills John as his piss over fills John until it's seeping out around Bane's softening length. Pain flares, renewed, as the piss runs over the tears Bane has left in John's skin. John digs his fingers into the cushions beneath him and turns from Bane's gaze, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest, his throat.

“John.” Bane's voice is soft, the almost sleepy purr of contentment in it running along John's aching body. It's too much.

The first sob catches John by surprise. It shakes him and then his eyes are burning, tears running hot down his cheek. He tries to stop, heels pressing hard into his eyes to try and keep the tears from coming but they won't be stopped. He drags in rasping, shallow breaths between the jagged explosions of tears, his head pounding.

Bane curls around John, presses John into Bane's chest and John is suddenly clutching at Bane's shirt, face buried in the heavy curve of Bane's neck. The thin thread of control John has been clinging to snaps and he's keening into Bane's sweat damp skin. Pain and fear and everything else pouring out of John until he's nothing but a hollow shell wrapped up in Bane's implacable strength.

"You've done so good, John, so good. I've got you now."

Warmth blooms in John's chest, a feeling that John refuses to name, and he closes his eyes to try and hide from it even as he realizes that he's relaxing into Bane's arms.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *whistles and pretends that a year hasn't passed since the last chapter was posted*
> 
> Basically I suck.

John stops crying eventually, the tears drying hot on his cheeks and in the curves of his neck. His throat is raw, his eyes burning behind closed lids. All John wants is to go away, just for a little while, but he can't make himself go to sleep. No matter how hard he wills it he can't find the quiet nowhere place that he has vanished into once or twice before. He's left trapped in his body, warm and sticky and bruised in patterns so familiar that they've become normal.

Bane slides out of him, the move bringing a little gasp of relief to John's lips, and wraps his arms around John, shifting him on the cushions until Bane is lying beside him, John's head resting on his chest. Bane runs his fingers through John's hair, blunt nails scratching gently against John's scalp. He talks, a low, steady stream of words in one of the million languages that John doesn't understand.

It's soothing, the rise and fall of Bane's voice like music without meaning to John's ears. John lets the voice wash around him, mixing with the distant calls of birds and the hushed murmur of the wind, hoping that it will finally carry him off to sleep. Tension seeps out of John's body little by little; John finds his heart falling into synch with the steady thudding of Bane's heartbeat beneath his ear, his breaths coming slow and easy but sleep and oblivion remain out of reach.

John drifts. He can still hear Bane, still feel the slow glide of Bane's hands over his skin and the cooling stickiness drying between his legs. There's a faint breeze, and it carries the acrid scent of Bane's piss up to John in a fresh wave that worms it's way into his body, lodging in his lungs, making his chest tight. For an instant he can feel Bane's weight over him again, the burning heat of his piss flooding John. He bites down on his tongue to swallow the scream that wells up inside him at the memory and shivers, chilled from the inside out.

Bane pulls him in closer, the heat coming off of Bane's body like a furnace, and John melts into his hold, a quiet mumble of protest dying in his throat. Pressing closely to Bane's skin he can almost drive the other scents away, bury himself in the heavy salt-sweetness of the sweat on Bane's body and the faint hint of something spicy that lingers around the man. After a while the phantom feeling of Bane inside of him fades and John starts to fall back into the half-conscious quietness.

They stay that way, John drifting quietly, uncaring, and Bane stroking him like a favorite pet. Loud voices suddenly echo up from the valley below and the noise startles John, jerking him out of his doze. He realizes that he's hot and sticky; sweat and other things drying on his skin in tight lines that pull with every shift of his muscles. He _smells_ , and he knows that he's going to be tasting it in the back of his throat for days, the mix of the scent of Bane's skin and come and piss all mixing together until they become something else entirely. John smells like Bane, down to the center of his being.

Bane eventually stirs, sitting up and shifting John until his head is resting against one of Bane's thighs, cheek scratching on the thick fabric of Bane's pants. The smells are stronger there, Bane's orgasm beneath the heavy scent of piss and what John imagines is the faintest hint of his own smell lingering on Bane's skin. It's too much, his head is suddenly full of sharp red spikes of anger that he can't afford to do anything with. John rolls away from Bane, putting some distance between his overheated body and the perpetual warmth of Bane's flesh. Bane lets him go, resting one hand on John's back when John finally settles into the cooler fabric of the cushions. Away from Bane's heat the breeze quickly becomes too cold. John's skin feels too tight, itchy with the dried sweat and... _Bane_ on his thighs. John curls more tightly into himself, trying to keep the lingering remnants of warmth within his body, unwilling to give in and go back to Bane's side. He doesn't understand why they're still out here, why Bane hasn't scooped him up and marched him back to his room already.

He wants the quiet and the familiarity of the four walls that he's mapped over and over again until he knows every crack and scuff, with Tim silently watching and weighing John's every action. He wants to be away - from Bane and the temptation of the balcony's edge and the sick feeling clawing in his veins. 

Bane's low, growling chuckle rattles through John's bones. 

John listens to the creak of the wood as Bane pushes himself to his feet, refusing to roll over and look at the man. His footsteps reverberate through the balcony and John tracks his path over to the railing and then back to where John lays. "Are you cold?"

"No." John wraps his arms tighter around himself and fights down a shiver. He expects Bane to mock, to force a confession from him. Instead, there is silence and then the soft impact of cloth landing on John's head. He blinks in the sudden twilight and reaches up, dragging the cloth off his face to find the faded blue shirt Bane had been wearing balled up in his hands. John rolls and sits up, his fingers digging into the warm fabric in an effort to keep from shaking. Bane is watching him, still and eerily quiet.

"Stubbornness is only admirable to a point, John." Bane is holding the remains of John's clothes, running the torn fabric through his fingers. The sun glows on his bare chest, highlighting scars and the tracks of sweat that run over Bane's muscular body.

John slips the shirt on and tucks his legs up under it, grateful for once that Bane is so much larger than John himself. He turns away from Bane at the sound of another shout from below. The sun is starting to go down, turning the sky into a slow moving firestorm of colors. Bane shows no signs of moving, seemingly content to stand there and watch John try to ignore him. John digs his bare toes into the cushions and curls his hands into loose fists, trying to ward off the chill in his fingers.

John lasts another few minutes before he has to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. The nights turn sharp here, the heat of the day seeming to vanish the second the sun dips below the horizon. Bane, as always, seems not to notice the cold breeze whistling through the balcony any more than he ever notices the heat.

"Fine.” John snaps, the sharpness in his voice surprising even himself. “I'm cold." He pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the familiar throbbing pain that wraps around his hips and makes his stomach twist in knots. He staggers a little, his legs half numb from sitting for so long. John is unsurprised when Bane reaches out to steady him. He doesn’t flinch from the touch, doesn’t even feel the urge to. There's no point. He doesn't know what's left for Bane to do but kill him and there are still far too many moments where John thinks he would welcome death if it meant a real end to all of this. He accepts the help and the slow pulse of warmth that radiates out from Bane's touch. "Are- I-" John digs his short nails into the palms of his hands and forces himself to meet Bane's eyes. “I want to go back to my cell.” He stumbles over the words, the ‘my’ lodging in his throat and threatening to choke him.

“Of course.” Bane’s hands are gentle as he wraps one arm around John and guides John through the narrow door out into the hall.

It would be easier, John thinks, if Bane would just keep hurting him, if his grip always left bruises and blood behind. If he did nothing but scream and insult John, beat him down until he was nothing but a shattered soul walking around. 

The moments of kindness make it all so much harder.

They don’t go back to John’s cell.

It takes a while for John to realize it. There’s not much to differentiate the halls that they walk through, but eventually John notices that they’ve been walking for too long. They’re going up stairs he doesn’t remember ever coming down and there are more people passing them in the hall than there have been in all the times John can remember.

He starts to pay more attention, trying to guess where they could be going. The walls are still plain stone or concrete, unmarked and unremarkable to the point where John isn’t sure how he can ever hope to learn the twists and turns well enough to find his way out, even assuming he could get away from Bane long enough to try.

John is lost, and the knowledge of it settles against his skin. It rubs him raw, cutting at soft, sensitive spots until John feels like he's bleeding from a thousand invisible cuts.

The people who pass them will sometimes smile at Bane, or greet him in one of a dozen languages. Their eyes slide over John, looking around and through him, never lingering. After a while even that seems like too much. John is painfully aware of just how little Bane's shirt really covers; he can feel the pull of dried fluids in the hairs of his legs every time he takes a step. He can imagine what they think of him.

His shame touches off something inside of John, a dark and familiar feeling. An old anger grinds through his body, warring with the fear and pain that have become his constant companions here. John bares his teeth at the next person to pass them, the skin of his face stretching painfully tight, his vision blurring as something warm and wet slithers down his cheeks. The man passes them silently, a half smile on his lips, the sun shining in his deep red hair. Blue eyes spark in the tanned face, mocking laughter glinting in their depths and John can almost feel the impact of his fist against that smirking mouth, the sharp pain of teeth scraping against his knuckles and the soft burn of torn skin. John is suddenly vibrating with anger and he can't move, can't take another step without it turning into a lunge.

Bane's arm tightens around him, dragging John closer, nearly lifting him off of his feet so that Bane is carrying most of John's weight. 

Fear drives a spike through John's anger. He fumbles until his fingers find the wide, worn leather of Bane’s belt and wrap around the solid length. John's mind stutters, trying to focus as his blood turns cold. 

He had almost- 

-with Bane _right there_ , watching. John's skin prickles with cold and the ghostly echo of water lapping against the narrow stones of the well. He swallows hard and digs the fingers of his free hand into the skin of his thigh below the hem of Bane's shirt. 

The pain is nothing, really, but it's familiar and _his_. John's breathing starts to slow down, his feet finding the floor again and by the time Bane's boots hit the next set of stairs John is stumbling along beside him once more instead of being dragged.

“Are you finished being foolish?” Bane's voice gives away nothing.

“I didn't do anything.” John works to unclench the fingers he has wrapped around Bane's belt. His knuckles are aching and the concrete under his feet is rougher than the halls John has been through before, pitted and scarred with age.

“Not for lack of desire.” And there's a hint of something there in Bane's voice, something that is not the condescending amusement that John has grown used to. They take another turn, the floor beneath them sloping gently, uneven down the length of the short, shadowed hall. 

Bane stops in front of a door at the end of the hall, unmarked and unremarkable. It opens silently beneath Bane's touch and he pushes John through the doorway. The room John finds himself in is plain but still nicer than anything he's seen in months. Soft, threadbare carpets that feel like silk compared to the stone he's grown used to cover the floor. There's a bed in one corner beneath the room's only window, the frame low and sturdy looking.

John shuffles away from Bane to press shaking fingers to the edge of a painting hanging on one wall. The picture is small, the colors once bright but fading and when John pulls his hand away there are small flecks of the paint sticking to the tips of his fingers. He leans in more closely, trying to make out the image in the poor light. The hem of Bane's shirt rides up as John leans over, dragging in a tickling sensation over the back of his thighs. John fights down the shiver that wants to slide up his spine, turning to the rest of the room to distract himself.

Bane leans against the door, head ducked a little, watching. His breathing is a low, rasping pulse that fills the room and the man himself seems content to watch John explore. It doesn't take long, there's not much to look at. Bed, painting, window. A cabinet beside a second, open doorway, the wood worn and battered as everything else in the room and a heavy looking table in one corner with a single chair beside it.

John keeps turning to the window, drawn to it against his will. He does his best to ignore it, to not seem too eager at it's unbarred presence. He turns to face Bane, putting his back to the window and the possibilities it holds.

“Where are we?” John starts to wrap his arms around himself and stops half way, aware of the picture he must present. Barefoot, wearing nothing but Bane's own thin shirt and covered in Bane's marks.

Vulnerable.

John crosses his arms over his chest instead and tells himself that it doesn't feel like a pathetic attempt at comfort.

“The bath is through there.” Bane nods his head toward the dark void of the second doorway. “Wash if you like. I have business to attend to.”

"What?" John's voice is loud enough that it startles him.

Bane acts as if John hasn't spoken, stepping backward into the hall. The door swings shut after him with an echoing thunk. 

John stands and listens to the lock grating shut, follows the echoes of Bane's boots down the hall until even their steady pace is lost to the warren of the fortress.

John tries the door. The handle is warm and slippery beneath his hands as he turns it again and again, the metal rattling uselessly. His heart spikes, beating painfully fast in his chest and John feels tears pricking in his eyes again, his throat tightening with anger or fear or something else he can't bear to name. The first kick takes John by surprise, the impact jolting up his leg in sharp bolts of pain. He doesn't remember deciding to kick the door, it just happens, his body moving without him having to think at all. 

It feels good. 

John shouts and kicks and pounds at the door until his voice gives out and he is fighting to catch his breath. There are smears of blood on his knuckles, new dark stains on the wood of the door. His legs are shaking beneath him, his feet throbbing in pain. John leans against the door, his forehead smacking into the wood hard enough that his teeth rattle.

The sun has gone down, the moon not yet risen, and the room is in almost complete darkness when John finally stops. He turns away from the cold wood of the door, his nerves slowly settling. His eyes are drawn to the window, the hole an invitingly lighter shade of grey than the wall around it. He takes a few steps towards it before he stops, the uncomfortable stickiness of his thighs bringing him up short. He's filthy, reeking of Bane's piss and John can't imagine climbing on the bed the way he is and then having to sleep in it. 

He doesn't think Bane would be pleased with it either. 

John turns to his right, moving slowly through the darkness until he finds the door to the bathroom. It's eerie to find it so open, no lock between himself and the toilet. It's been...he doesn't know how long, really, but it's been too long for John to feel comfortable with more than a passing thought of relieving himself for the simple joy of being able to do it without Bane's hulking presence behind him. 

He finds the light switch by accident, his fingers fumbling along one wall in the dark, searching for a shower or a bath. There's a soft click and light floods the room, sharp and too bright in John's eyes. He flinches, hits the switch again and blinks away stinging tears in the cool darkness. 

The second time he turns the lights on John closes his eyes first, keeps them closed until the brilliance fades, turns from painful red seeping through his clenched eyelids to warm white. Even then, when he squints his eyes open the light reflects painfully off of the cool white tile of the shower. John doesn't care. He blinks and squints and shuffles on aching feet around the bathroom, staring at everything and touching with what might be delight in a less shattered man. 

It's just a basic bathroom but it has _lights_ and John can turn them on and off when he wants. It has no fucking door and John can't find any place to install one in the empty doorway. No screw marks, no hinges, nothing. John walks in and out of the bathroom a couple of times just because he can.

For a few minutes he almost forgets the dried mess on his legs and the stale scent of piss soaked into his skin. John uses the light from the bathroom doorway to search the bedroom. He finds another light switch by the locked door, partially hidden behind the cabinet. John itches to flip that switch too, to flood the room with light that is his to control but there's a shake to his hand when he reaches for the little bit of plastic. The back of his neck crawls with the irrational certainty that Bane will appear as soon as John touches it.

In the end he backs away, hurries into the bathroom as if it's a safe haven. John sways in the doorway, his feet and legs screaming at him. He raises a hand to brace himself against the frame and he can see the blood on his knuckles, torn skin turning softly purple with bruises. John looks away, looks down. There are bruises on his thighs, beneath the hem of Bane's shirt. He can feel them every time he moves, but in the harsh light of the bathroom the mottled black and purple hand prints on his skin are like screams. When he looks around the room everything is too much. Too brightly lit, too white. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to conceal anything. 

John flicks the light off.

He's blind in the renewed darkness, but that's fine. He's used to it.

John moves to the shower from memory, the moonlight from the bedrooms single window not reaching far enough to make any difference in the recesses of the bathroom. The water pressure is iffy but after a few minutes the water is hot enough to scald John's bare skin. He strips Bane's soiled shirt off and steps under the spray. It should feel wonderful, the clean water washing away the dirt and grime, scouring John of the scent of Bane but he's too tense, waiting for the pounding of Bane's boots against the hard flooring, anticipating Bane's body wrapping around his, hands gripping and pulling and leaving fresh tracks of bruises on John's skin.

John washes himself clean as quickly as he can, ignores the ache of his body as he twists and turns beneath the hot spray, trying to reach every sticky line of Bane's come on his thighs. It hurts to clean himself, the soap burns on abraded and torn flesh. John scrubs harder at the parts that hurt, imagines the stain of Bane leaving him in thin lines of dark red blood, invisible in the dark.

He cries as he drags a rough wash cloth over the inside of his thighs, his throat closing around the scream that wants to tear him apart. The heat of the shower becomes a furnace, burning lines of lava rolling over his skin, the steam scalding his open mouth and throat. John slams his fist into the tiled wall, savoring the sharp pain that shoots up his arm for a second before fading into numbness. He does it again; one of his knuckles catches the edge of a tile, the skin splitting anew with a sigh of fresh pain. 

John swings with the other first, pounds weakly against the unyielding tiles until he can feel the broad ache of a dozen tears in his skin. He can feel his knuckles swelling, his pulse pounding through the abused flesh. The scream choking him lightens, twists, turns into a strained laugh that echoes off of the tile and sends a shard of icy unease slicing down his spine. He doesn't like that sound, clamps one abused hand over his mouth to keep it from escaping again.

John finds the shower knob with his other hand, jerks it all the way over to cold and lets the freezing water wash over him. He doesn't turn the icy flow off until he's shivering, teeth clenched tightly to prevent them from chattering. The cold has done it's job though, he doesn't feel the mad flutter of that laugh in the back of his throat any more, doesn't want to scream and break himself against the harshness of the walls of the fortress.

He dries off, kicking the crumpled mound of Bane's shirt into the shower stall behind him as he wraps the towel around himself. It's another time to be grateful for Bane's size – the towel is large enough that John can wrap it around his chest and it covers him nearly down to his knees. John shivers and stumbles on his bruised feet into the bedroom, eyes sliding to the solid barrier of the still locked door. He can't hear anything from the hall, not even the barest whisper of a voice. It's not the relief it should be. 

John stands in the middle of the room, shuffles his feet over the softness of the carpets and lets his eyes flit over each dark shape. He considers the table, the cabinet, the small rectangle of darkness that is the painting on the far wall. Darkness and more darkness. 

Except for the moonlight that curls invitingly around the edges of the window. 

In the end John climbs up onto the bed, towel still wrapped around his thin body and walks carefully over the mattress until he can dig his fingers into the wood of the windowsill and peer out. 

The glass in the window panes is thick enough to distort the lights John can pick out in the darkness outside. He presses his palm against it and the glass is cold enough that John turns his hand around to hold his throbbing knuckles to it until they start to go numb. His breath steams the glass in miniature cloud bursts until he can't see anything. 

Unlike the lock on the door the latch on the window works without the least bit of resistance. John pushes the window open and a cold stream of air washes around him, setting his teeth to chattering. He presses closer to the wall. It's not any warmer than the air but it gives John an illusion of being something other than exposed.

John resists looking down as long as he can, tries to focus on the dark shapes of the mountains in the distance, the bright sparks of light dotting them here and there. Houses, he guesses. Houses and people. He wonders if they're like the men who caught him and gave him back to Bane or if they're innocent. Ignorant of the monsters living in their midst. 

For a second it seems obscene to him that there should be people out there living their lives while John languishes in hell. He bares his teeth at the peacefulness of the world outside of the window, feels the towel slip loose around his chest, slide down his hips to pool around his feet on the bed. 

Gravity.

John looks down, down into a world of grey and black nothingness that seems to go on forever. It rushes up at him, makes his head spin with frightening yearning that grips his throat and makes it hard to breathe. He finds his hands tracing the edges of the window, silently measuring. Wondering. 

He might fit. He'd never been big to begin with and he's lost so much weight. 

He might fit through the narrow opening. If he wanted.

There's nothing but silence from the hall, the soft calls of night creatures out in the desert beckoning from the world outside the window.

He might make it, if he was quick. 

Gone before anyone even knew.

He wonders if it would be better at night, unable to see the ground rushing up to embrace him.

It's terrifying.

John lets go of the window frame, collapses back onto the bed beneath him. The soft bounce of the mattress hurts, jars each and every bruise inside and out. John closes his eyes, blocks out the sight of the window over his head. He lays there until his breathing evens out, until he can't feel the rush of air over his skin or hear the roar of it past his ears.

The pillow smells like Bane.

Not the scent that Bane carves into John at every opportunity, but the smell of Bane's skin beneath the dust and the dirt of life. John turns his head into the pillow and breathes in the unique mixture of salt sweat with a hint of the sweetness from whatever drugs Bane pumps into his system. It drags John down, away from the idea of climbing through the window to meet the darkness beyond it. Each breath helps to anchor him in the moment, the softness of the sheets against his naked skin, the lumps of the mattress pressing into the bruises on John's back until the ache of them is almost a relief. 

He falls asleep that way, stretched out across the bed, his body a painful reminder that he is still alive.


End file.
